Web Citation Availability: A Follow-up Study

The researchers report on a study to examine the persistence of Web-based content. In 2002, a sample of 500 citations to Internet resources from articles published in library and information science journals in 1999 and 2000 were analyzed by citation characteristics and searched to determine cited content persistence, availability on the Web, and availability in the Internet Archive. Statistical analyses were conducted to identify citation characteristics associated with availability. The sample URLs were searched again between August 2005 and June 2006 to determine persistence, availability on the Web, and in the Internet Archive. As in the original study, the researchers cross-tabulated the results with URL characteristics and reviewed and analyzed journal instructions to authors on citing content on the Web. Findings included a decrease of 17.4 percent in persistence, and 8.2 percent in availability on the Web. When availability in the Internet Archives was factored in, the overall availability of Web content in the sample dropped from 89.2 percent to 80.6 percent. The statistical analysis confirmed the association between the likelihood that cited content will be found by future researchers and citation characteristics of content, domain, page type, and directory depth. The researchers also found an increase in the number of journals that provide instruction to authors on citing content on the Web

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

Analyzing the Persistence of Referenced Web Resources with Memento

In this paper we present the results of a study into the persistence and availability of web resources referenced from papers in scholarly repositories. Two repositories with different characteristics, arXiv and the UNT digital library, are studied to determine if the nature of the repository, or of its content, has a bearing on the availability of the web resources cited by that content. Memento makes it possible to automate discovery of archived resources and to consider the time between the publication of the research and the archiving of the referenced URLs. This automation allows us to process more than 160000 URLs, the largest known such study, and the repository metadata allows consideration of the results by discipline. The results are startling: 45% (66096) of the URLs referenced from arXiv still exist, but are not preserved for future generations, and 28% of resources referenced by UNT papers have been lost. Moving forwards, we provide some initial recommendations, including that repositories should publish URL lists extracted from papers that could be used as seeds for web archiving systems.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to Open Repositories 2011 Conferenc

Why Print and Electronic Resources Are Essential to the Academic Law Library

Libraries have supported multiple formats for decades, from paper and microforms to audiovisual tapes and CDs. However, the newest medium, digital transmission, has presented a wider scope of challenges and caused library patrons to question the established and recognized multiformat library. Within the many questions posed, two distinct ones echo repeatedly. The first doubts the need to sustain print in an increasingly digital world, and the second warns of the dangers of relying on a still-developing technology. This article examines both of these positions and concludes that abandoning either format would translate into a failure of service to patrons, both present and future

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

Impact of digital information resources in the toxicology literature

Purpose – The purpose of the study reported here was to assess the degree to which new forms of web-based information and communication resources impact on the formal toxicology literature, and the extent of any change between 2000 and 2005. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of an empirical examination of the full content of four toxicology journals for the year 2000 and for the year 2005, with analysis of the results, comparison with similar studies in other subject areas, and with a small survey of the information behaviour of practising toxicologists. Findings – Scholarly communication in toxicology has been relatively little affected by new forms of information resource (weblogs, wikis, discussion lists, etc.). Citations in journal articles are still largely to “traditional” resources, though a significant increase in the proportion of web-based material being cited in the toxicology literature has occurred between 2000 and 2005, from a mean of 3 per cent to a mean of 19 per cent. Research limitations/implications – The empirical research is limited to an examination of four journals in two samples of one year each. Originality/value – This is the only recent study of the impact of new ICTs on toxicology communication. It adds to the literature on the citation of digital resources in scholarly publications

Availability and Preservation of Scholarly Digital Resources

The dynamic, decentralized world-wide-web has become an essential part of scientific research and communication, representing a relatively new medium for the conveyance of scientific thought and discovery. Researchers create thousands of web sites every year to share software, data and services. Unlike books and journals, however, the preservation systems are not yet mature. This carries implications that go to the core of science: the ability to examine another\u27s sources to understand and reproduce their work. These valuable resources have been documented as disappearing over time in several subject areas. This dissertation examines the problem by performing a crossdisciplinary investigation, testing the effectiveness of existing remedies and introducing new ones. As part of the investigation, 14,489 unique web pages found in the abstracts within Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science citation index were accessed. The median lifespan of these web pages was found to be 9.3 years with 62% of them being archived. Survival analysis and logistic regression identified significant predictors of URL lifespan and included the year a URL was published, the number of times it was cited, its depth as well as its domain. Statistical analysis revealed biases in current static web-page solutions

Finding the unfound: Recovery of missing URLs through Internet Archive

The study investigated the accessibility and permanency of citations containing URLs in the articles published in DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology journal during 2006-2015. A total of 2133 URL citations were identified out of which 823 were found to be incorrect or missing. HTTP-404 was the most common error message associated with the missing URLs. The study also tried to recover the incorrect or URL citations using Internet Archive and recovered a total of 484 (58.81%) missing URL citations