Journals are one of the most important ways for scholarly communication. The purpose of this article is to discuss the development of academic journals, peer review mechanism, and the system of journal editing and publishing affairs. The prevalence of the Internet, in particular the appearance of electronic journals, affects the behavior of authors, readers and libraries towards of disseminating information. Its impact for peer review system, authorship and the prestige and traditional publication profit for the publishers and vendors are also discussed in this paper.