We have all experienced link rot (even if we don’t call it that).
Webcite is an antidote, explained here in Wikipedia. Initiated by an author or citer, a web page is archived publicly so that the link can be preserved for any article that cites it.
I haven’t used it yet, and would be interested to know how others find it.
The trouble with dead links is it’s often too late to do anything about it, once you discover a link is dead.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Bob Bell // Nov 9, 2008 at 4:29 am
Frances,
Thanks for the Webcite link.
I have been using “zotero” for about a year now.
Web links/pages can be downloaded and stored or you can create a page snapshot. There are many other built in services…
Since my interests are not predictable or stable, zotero fits my needs.
http://www.zotero.org
2 Frances // Nov 9, 2008 at 10:13 am
Thanks for that Bob. You have made me realise I didn’t explain properly that the archive is public so that it works for everyone. That means if you use a webcite in your paper then readers will still be able to see it after the original has disappeared.
IS that how Zotero works? I did try it but gave up beacuse it couldn’t import my extensive Endnote Library. I like the idea of it but won’t be using it until the data issues are sorted out.
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