From Oldenburg to open access: what future for scientific journals?

This paper presents in detail and analyses the book Revistas cientificas: situacion actual y retos de futuro, Ernest Abadal (ed). Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2017. Data and consideration on scientific publishing, its birth, open access, the peer review process, traditional and alternative metrics are presented, in an attempt to outline future trends of academic journals that represent the connection between scholars, readers and the rest of society, an indispensable condition for scholarly communication and the progress of science.