Websites change, go away, and get taken down. When they do, linked citations can lead to broken, blank, unintentional, or even malicious pages. This decay is called “link rot.” Link rot affects everyone who cites links. Over 50% of cited links in Supreme Court opinions no longer point to the intended page. Roughly 70% of cited links in academic legal journals and 20% of all science, technology and medicine articles suffer from link rot.

Perma.cc helps scholars, journals and courts prevent link rot by creating permanent, reliable, unalterable links to the online sources cited in their work.

Fondren Library is part of a network of perma.cc libraries and other trusted organizations to act as registrar for the Rice community. In this role, the library manages users and provides additional assistance on issues related to link rot.

Want to give perma.cc a try? It’s simple:

1. Email the library at cds@rice.edu to request an account. Use “perma” for subject line. [service available for current Rice faculty, staff, and students]
2. Once registered, find the page you want to preserve. Copy its URL and visit https://perma.cc/.
3. Add your URL to perma.cc. Select “Create Perma Link.”
4. Once perma.cc has created the record, you can delete or annotate it.
5. Use the perma link in your citations–it will never change or break.