Robustifying Links To Combat Reference Rot

Shawn M. Jones, Martin Klein, Herbert van de Sompel

Research output: Working paper/discussion paperWeb articleScientific

Abstract

Links to web resources frequently break, and linked content can change at unpredictable rates. These dynamics of the Web are detrimental when references to web resources provide evidence or supporting information. In this paper, we highlight the significance of reference rot, provide an overview of existing techniques and their characteristics to address it, and introduce our Robust Links approach, including its web service and underlying API. Robustifying links offers a proactive, uniform, and machine-actionable way to combat reference rot. In addition, we discuss our reasoning and approach aimed at keeping the approach functional for the long term. To showcase our approach, we have robustified all links in this article.
Original languageEnglish
Volume2021-02-10
Publication statusPublished - 10 Feb 2021

Publication series

NameCode4Lib
ISSN (Print)1940-5758

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