Perma is proud to call the Law Library of Congress one of our active, leading users. Charlotte Stitcher, the law library’s managing editor, has implemented Perma.cc since 2015 to fight link and reference rot in Library of Congress publications. A 2014 internal Law Library of Congress review of law reports published by the Global Legal Research Center (GLRC) found that “a significant number” of footnoted links no longer worked, which fits similar conclusions found by the Harvard Law Review’s own study of link rot in three Harvard journals and U.S. Supreme Court cases. In their search to find a solution to the link rot problem, the Law Library found Perma.cc, which they officially implemented in October 2015.
Using Perma, the GLRC is able to add archived copies of web pages to the footnotes of all new reports. A recent example is the GLRC’s November 2016 report on “Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, and War Crimes Jurisdiction,” which contains an archived Perma.cc link alongside each cited hyperlink.
Get your institution on to Perma.cc and help your patrons and scholars fight link-rot, by signing your library up today!
Law Library of Congress Implements Solution for Link and Reference Rot