Link rot (and “reference rot”) happens when you cite to an online source that later disappears or changes. It's a big problem, especially for academic scholarship and judicial opinions, which depend heavily on citations to stable sources that readers can access. For example, a study conducted by researchers at Harvard Law School found that more than 70% of the links in a sample of law journals and 50% of the links in Supreme Court opinions no longer work.
Links need only be created for open web sources that do not have a stable URL (i.e. websites, blogs, working papers, and so forth). Do not archive sites that keep content behind a paywall. This excludes HeinOnline, LexisNexis and Westlaw, i.e. Lexis, West, Hein content are behind paywalls.
Perma.cc Terms and Conditions 5(a) states “that the User Submitted Content both (1) is freely available on the Internet to the general public without paying, registering with the website, or the like and (2) is cited in a legal or scholarly work;”.
If you have any questions on what is/not allowable, please contact the Library Director or designate.
Each journal is its own Archiving Organization. The Editors in Chief and Managing Editors are set up by the Library Journals Liaison as Affiliated Users of the Organization, they can then create user accounts for other editors. Affiliated Users can create links within your journal’s Archiving Organization account. It is not recommended that journal staff become Affiliated Users.
Journal editors and staff should not create their own User IDs. The Journals Liaison will add new editors from within Perma. Use only UNMSOL email addresses for account setup. The new member will receive an email from info@perma.cc to activate their account. Once your receive the email, click on the link to set your password. Not sure where the email is? Check your clutter/junk/spam folders.
Once logged in, you'll see the Perma dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the screen. From this menu you can navigate to your links or the tools and settings pages. The My Links page gives you quick access to all of the links you've created. As a member of an organization, you'll also see all the links associated with your organization. From this page, you can annotate links and organize them into folders according to your journal's preferences.
If you no longer want a user to be affiliated with your organization, you can remove them from your organization. Any links they created while affiliated with the organization will remain active and still be able to be managed by others affiliated with the organization.
Follow steps 1-4 above to access the Manage Users options.
Click the "remove" button next to their name and confirm that you want to remove that user's organizational affiliation.
This page's information is from Drake Law Library.
* Do not create Perma.cc links for pages that already have a permanent URL and/or if the source is readily available in print. Do not create links for electronic sources that are not freely available to anyone on the web. This includes content from Westlaw, Lexis, Hein, and all other licensed databases. Please ask a librarian if you have any doubt about whether it's okay to create a perma.cc link.
Creating Perma links while cite-checking is not recommended. This is because Perma.cc creates a different link every time you enter a URL, even if it’s the exact same URL. You can easily end up with a lot of links to the same place.
If an author creates their own Perma.cc Link, this means the information will never have a chance to disappear between when they submit their article to when S&C is completed. Practitioners and scholars outside of the legal field most likely do not know about Perma.cc. If you want an author to archive their own links, please be ready to talk them through the process.
Read about Private Archives within Perma.cc
Tips curated by Tove Kloving at Washington University Law Library & Nick Szydlowski at Boston College Law Library.
Links need only be created for open web sources that do not have a stable URL (i.e. websites, blogs, working papers, and so forth). This excludes HeinOnline and Westlaw. Also, do not archive sites that keep content behind a paywall. For more info on this, skip down to the sub-tab on “Copyright”.
URLs with a DOI or Handle are stable, and there is no need to create a Perma link. If you’re not sure if the web page should be vest, check the URL. Is it long and complex? If so, there is greater chance the page will be unstable over time.
Example of a DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22120
Example of a Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hncbnw
► Some sites may not archive completely. Common reasons are:
► Blogs
When creating a Perma.cc link for a blog post, always use the URL for that specific post, not the URL for the Blog itself. Even if the blog post appears in its entirety on the Blog’s main page, overtime it will move down and then off that page.
Options for finding the link for a specific blog entry will vary:
Note: Sometimes a pop-up add can obscure information when the screen shot is taken.
►Newspapers, Magazine Articles
Often, a website will only display the first portion of an article on the initial Webpage. Do not rely on the small preview window when determining if the entire article has been archived. Look for a “Share” button that is not dedicated to a specific social networking site. Click on “Share” to see if a link is displayed. If not, you usually will be offered a long list of social networking sites. Look for an option not associated with a social networking site, such as “Copy Link” (make sure you have selected the entire link).
If the PDF opens in your browser, you can copy the URL from your browser. If it opens in a PDF reader, go back to the page with the link, copy the link location. For Firefox on PC: right click the link and select “copy link location”. For Internet Explorer on PC: right click the link and select “copy shortcut”.
You can annotate any link accessible to you. Just select "My links" from the dropdown menu, click on the right folder, and then click the "More" button on the item you want to annotate. The item will expand to display more details about the link. From this view you can edit the title, add notes, move the link to another folder, and view other metadata about the link:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
