Elsevier management knew that continued success depended on extending this heritage into the digital future. The company’s strategy was to move online. A major breakthrough in this area came with the 1999 commercial launch of sciencedirect.com, a full-text database comprising more than 7 million articles.

To connect the print and digital worlds, Elsevier needed to combine subscriptions into a comprehensive master record that permitted accurate print and electronic pricing. Elsevier needed...