Web Citation Availability: Analysis and Implictions for Scholarship

Five hundred citations to Internet resources from articles published in library and information science journals in 1999 and 2000 were profiled and searched on the Web. The majority contained partial bibliographic information and no date viewed. Most URLs pointed to content pages with edu or org domains and did not include a tilde. More than half (56.4%) were permanent, 81.4 percent were available on the Web, and searching the Internet Archive increased the availability rate to 89.2 percent. Content, domain, and directory depth were associated with availability. Few of the journals provided instruction on citing digital resources. Eight suggestions for improving scholarly communication citation conventions are presented

Exploring the Half-life of Internet Footnotes

Vanishing online references are becoming a problem for scholars. This exploratory study examines use of online citations, focusing on 2003 AEJMC conference papers accepted by the Communication Technology and Policy division. Authors analyze papers using URL reference addresses in bibliographies and document some 40% of online citations being unavailable a year later. Results show that .edu is the most stable domain. Error messages for dead URL addresses also are explored. Finally authors offer much needed recommendations for researchers who use Internet citations

URL Decay at Year 20: A Research Note

All text is ephemeral. Some texts are more ephemeral than others. The web has proved to be among the most ephemeral and changing of information vehicles. The research note revisits Koehler's original data set after about 20 years since it was first collected. By late 2013, the number of URLs responding to a query had fallen to 1.6% of the original sample. A query of the 6 remaining URLs in February 2015 showed only 2 still responding

The Availability and Persistence of Web Citations in Iranian LIS Journals (2006-2010)

To discover the current situation and characteristics of Web citations accessibility, the present study examined the accessibility of 4,253 Web citations in six key Iranian LIS journals published from 2006 to 2010. The proportion percentage of Web citations increased from 11% in 2006 to 30% in 2010. The most widely cited top level domains in URLs include the .edu and .org with respectively 37% and 23%. This study provides further evidence that organizations Websites have become increasingly vulnerable to URL decay .The results show that only 3,467 Web citations remain accessible in 2011, of which 71% allowed easy and long-term access to author information contained in URLs. Long time inaccessibility to author information was shown to be mostly from URLs that returned the 404 error and also the URLs that had gone through an information update. A 4-year half-life was estimated for Iran’s LIS Publications. The results suggest that the decay of URLs is a grave problem in the publications of Iran’s LIS researchers and cannot be overlooked. These authors need to gain the necessary knowledge about using Web citations as major sources of information for their publications

Decay of URLs Citation: A Case Study of Current Science

The present study is conducted to analyze the accessibility, deterioration and half-life of URLs of web documents cited in Current Science Journal published during 2015 -2016. A total of 1724 URLs cited in the 1564 articles were examined. It was found that 56.67 percent of URLs were accessible at the time of testing and the remaining 43.33 per-cent of URLs were not accessible. Out of all HTTP error messages, HTTP 404 – ‘file not found’ was the irresistible error message encountered and represented 59.03 percent of all HTTP error messages. Average half-life of URLs of missing URLs was estimated to be 1.76 years. Even though there are various retrieval tools being used to recover vanished URLs, still there is a need to improve such tools

Web Citations and Decay of URLs: A Case Study of Indian Journal of Agricultural Library and Information Services.

The present study is conducted to identify the prevailing citation trends, durability of web citations or URLs, decay and half-life of URLs by analyzing articles’ citations of Indian Journal of Agricultural Library and Information Services published during 2012 -2016. A total of 980 citations were reported in 94 articles out of which 33.16 percent were having web citations. Of web citations, 62.15 percent of URLs were accessible at the time of testing and the remaining 37.85 percent of URLs were not accessible. HTTP error message 404 “page not found’’ was the irresistible error message appeared and represented 51.22 percent of all HTTP error messages. Average half-life of URLs was estimated to be 4.62 years. There was no association found between path depth and decay of URLs. Articles accessed from domain .org, .net and .co/.com were found more alive than other domains

Estructura de la comunidad de macroinvertebrados bentónicos en un estuario mediterráneo altamente estratificado

The community composition and spatial distribution of benthic macroinvertebrates were studied along the Ebro estuary, a highly stratified estuary located in the NE Iberian Peninsula. During the last decade the oligotrophication process occurring in the lower Ebro River and its estuary has allowed a complex benthic macroinvertebrate community to become established; these results contrast with the poor community found there in the early nineties. A total of 214 taxa were identified, and polychaetes dominated the community both in abundance and species richness. The results showed spatial differences in the structure and composition of macroinvertebrates, which suggests that there are two distinct communities along the estuary. Each community was found in a specific stretch (upper and lower estuary) in function of the presence of the salt wedge. The macrobenthos of the upper estuary was dominated by freshwater taxa, but some euryhaline species were also found. The lower estuary showed a marine community typical of shallow Mediterranean environments. The transition between these two communities fits an ecotone model. The highest abundances, richness and diversities were recorded at the lower estuarine stations, especially those closer to the river mouth, whereas the lowest values corresponded to the stations adjacent to the tip of the salt wedge.La composición de la comunidad y la distribución espacial de los macroinvertebrados bentónicos ha sido estudiada a lo largo del estuario del Río Ebro, un estuario altamente estratificado localizado al NE de la Península Ibérica. El proceso de oligotrofización ocurrido durante la última década en el tramo bajo del río Ebro y su estuario, ha permitido el establecimiento de una compleja comunidad de macroinvertebrados, contrastando con la comunidad encontrada a principios de los noventa. Un total de 214 taxones fueron identificados; los poliquetos constituyeron el grupo dominante en términos de riqueza y abundancia. Los resultados mostraron diferencias espaciales en la estructura y composición de macroinvertebrados, sugiriendo la existencia de dos comunidades diferentes a lo largo del estuario. Cada una de estas comunidades fue encontrada en un tramo específico (alto y bajo estuario) en función de la presencia de la cuña salina. El macrobentos del tramo alto del estuario estaba integrado mayoritariamente por taxones de agua dulce y algunos taxones eurihalinos. Por el contario, el tramo bajo presentó una comunidad marina típica de ambientes mediterráneos someros. La transición entre estas dos comunidades encajó con un modelo ecotonal. Las abundancias, riquezas y diversidades más elevadas fueron registradas en las estaciones del tramo bajo, especialmente en aquellas cercanas a la desembocadura; en cambio, los valores más bajos correspondieron a las estaciones adyacentes al extremo de la cuña salina