Over on Publishing Frontiers, Michael Jensen has a great post on the distinctions between the cultures of books and of journals, and what that’s meant in terms of the adoption of electronic publishing:
Journals were already template-based (essentially, CSS-ready). Journals publishers were already greatly focused on automating processes. Economies of scale could make journals production and throughput much more efficient. It also meant that the throughput process could be undertaken by libraries, using smart software (as seen by how many libraries are becoming “journals publishers”).
The entire post is well worth a read, and a good reminder that one digital size does not fit all.