Elsevier Science began to think seriously about using electronic distribution technologies for its journals in the late 1970s. We approached a number of other scientific, technical, and medical publishers to form a cooperative venture to scan journals and store them electronically. ADONIS was the name given to the consortium. The goal was to encourage article supply services such as the British Library's to use these electronic archives locally as their source for articles, rather than photocopying from the paper originals. If the electronic system was more efficient than using paper, then a royalty could be paid to the publishers for the copy made-royalties that were not otherwise being paid.