An article in Research Information provides some context for the relationship between the National Library of the Netherlands and Elsevier for archiving of the latter's output.

Karen Hunter, senior vice-president for strategy at Elsevier and responsible for this digital archiving initiative, explained the relevance of this agreement: 'It is essential that we will be able to guarantee both authors and researchers using the journals that the electronic files will be permanently available. Journals have been called 'the minutes of science'. As we move toward journals being available only in electronic form and being held centrally on publishers' computers, the public has the right to be assured that, should a publisher go out of business, these files will not be lost. The deal with the KB provides that assurance for Elsevier titles, which constitute an essential part of the core scientific literature currently published.' [Research Information]

It reads a little like an elaborated press release.