International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)

Current Issue

By Issue

By Author

By Subject

Author Index

Keyword Index

About Journal

Aims and Scope

Editorial Board

Publication Ethics

Indexing and Abstracting

Peer Review Process

Journal Metrics

Open Access Policy

Language editing services

Missing and Recovery of URLs Using Internet Archive: A Case Study on African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science (AJLAIS)

Document Type : Articles

Authors

1 Lead Digital Library Services, African Leadership University, Kigali, Rwanda.

2 Associate Prof., Department of Library & Information Science Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. Nigeria.

3 Graduate Student, Department of Library & Information Science Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. Nigeria.

Abstract

In recent times, authors of academic publications have depended on web resources. However, there have been some concerns raised on the permanency of e-resources on the web. In this context, this article investigated the availability, missing and recovery of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) citations cited in articles in the African Journal of Library, Archive and Information Science (AJLAIS) published between 2008 and 2017 using Internet Archive. A total of 986 URL citations in 129 research articles published in LIS journals were extracted. The finding showed that URL citations of the journal grew during the years 2008-2017 Finding further revealed that 986 represented 28.88% of the total 3414 references that appeared in the journal in the period under review. Of the total cited web citations 986 web citations 310(31.4%) were not accessible and 676 (68.6%) were accessible. This article adopted a W3C link checker to detect HTTP errors linked with missing URLs. HTTP 500 error messages (‘page not found’) were majorly the irresistible messages that denoted 20 per cent of all HTTP error messages. The highest percentage of missing URLs were associated with commercial domains. The attempt to recover 310 missing URL citations through Internet Archive increased the active web citations from 676 to 918 which accounted for 93.1% of active URL citations. This study further showed a negative correlation between path depth and missing URL citations. The statistical analysis of this research indicated that the number of citations and URL citations are positively correlated.
 

Keywords

References
Aina, L.O. (2002). African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science as a resource base for library and information science research in Africa, Africa Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science 12(2), 167-176.
Burnhill, P., Mewissen, M. & Wincewicz, R. (2015). Reference rot in scholarly statement: Threat and remedy. Insights, 28(2), 55-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1629/uksg.237
Casserly, M.F. & Bird, J.E. (2003). Web citation availability: analysis and implications for scholarship. College and Research Libraries. 64(7), 300-317.
Costa, M., Gomes, D. & Silva, M. J. (2017). The evolution of web archiving. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 18(3), 191-205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-016-0171-9    
Dimitrova, D.V. & Bugeja, M. (2007). The half-life of internet references cited in communication journals. New Media & Society, 9(5), 811-826. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444807081226  
Germain, C. A. (2000). URLs: Uniform resource locators or unreliable reliable resource locators? College and Research Libraries, 6(4), 359-365. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.61.4.359
 
Goh, D. H. L. & Ng, P.K. (2007). Link decay in leading information science journals. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(1), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20513
Gul, S., Mahajan, I. & Ali, A. (2014). The growth and decay of URLs citation: A case of an online library & information science journal. Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, 19(3), 27–39.
Janakiramaiah, M. & Doraswamy, M. (2011). Measuring impact of web resources in Conference Proceedings: A citation analysis In CALIBER, 541-549.
Król, K. (2019). The link rot phenomenon and its influence on the quality of the websites of rural tourism facilities in Poland. Economic and Regional Studies/ Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne, 12(1), 68-79. https://doi.org/10.2478/ers-2019-0007
Kumar, B. T. S., Vinay Kumar, D. & Prithviraj, K.R. (2015). Wayback machine: Reincarnation to vanished online citations, Program: electronic library and information systems, 49(2), 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1108/PROG-07-2013-0039   
Kumar, D.V. & Sushmitha, M. (2019). Recovery of missing URLs cited in annals of library and information studies: A study of time travel, Annals of Library and Information Studies (ALIS), 66(1), 22-32. Retrieved from http://op.niscair.res.in/index.php/ALIS/article/view/22420
Manjunatha, G., Sampath Kumar, B. T. & Lakshmana, H. (2020). Longevity of URL citations Cited in LIS journal articles: A Webometric Study. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-Journal). 3965. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/3965
Markwell, J. & Brooks, D. W. (2003). "Link rot" limits the usefulness of web-based educational materials in biochemistry and molecular biology. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 31(1), 69-72. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.2003.494031010165
McCown, F., Chan, S., Nelson, M. L. & Bollen, J. (2005). The availability and persistence of web references in D-Lib Magazine. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0511/0511077.pdf 
Moghaddam, A. S., Saberi, M. K. & Esmaeel, S.M. (2010). Availability and half-life of web references cited in information research journals: A citation study. International Journal of Information Science and Management, 8(2), 57-75. Retrieved from https://ijism.isc.ac/article_698149_2f3b10898eabe799e626be2f8eeae18b.pdf
Nagaraja, A., Joseph, S. A, Polen, H. H. & Clauson, K. A. (2011). Disappearing act: Persistence and attrition of uniform resource Locators (URLs) in an open access medical journal, Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, 45(1) 98–106. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330331111107420
Onyancha, O. B. (2009). A citation analysis of Sub-Sahara African library and information science journals using Google Scholar, African Journal of Library, Archives Information Science, 19(2), 101-116. Retrieved from  https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=63c089319a6474b8a918c31306fcffa64d9d0bfd
Parmar, S. & Pateria, R. K. (2019). Web citations and decay of URLs: A case study of Indian Journal of Agricultural Library and Information Services. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 3595. Retrieved from  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/3595
Prithviraj, K. R. & Sampath Kumar, B. T. (2014). Corrosion of URLs: Implications for electronic publishing. IFLA Journal, 40(1), 35–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035214526529
Rumsey, M. (2002). Runaway train: Problems of permanence, accessibility, and stability in the use of Web sources in law review citations. Law Library Journal, 94, 27–39.
Riahinia, N., Zandian, F. & Azimi, A. (2011). Web citation persistence over time: A retrospective study, The Electronic Library, 29(5) 609-620. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471111177053
Saberi, M. K. & Abedi, H. (2012). Accessibility and decay of web citations in five open access ISI journals. Internet Research, 22(2), 234–247. https://doi.org/10.1108/10662241211214584 
Sadat-Moosavi, A., Isfandyari-Moghaddam, A. & Tajeddini, O. (2012). Accessibility of online resources cited in scholarly LIS journals: A study of Emerald ISI-ranked journals. Aslib Proceedings, 64 (2), 178-192). https://doi.org/10.1108/00012531211215196
Sampath Kumar, B. T. & Kumar, K. S. Manoj (2012). Persistence and half-life of URL citations cited in LIS open access journals. Aslib Proceedings, 64(4), 405-422. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012531211244752
Sampath Kumar, B.T. & Prithvi Raj, K.R. (2012). Availability and persistence of web citations in Indian LIS literature, The Electronic Library, 30(1)19-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471211204042
Sampath Kumar, B.T. & Vinay Kumar, D. (2013). HTTP 404-page (not) found: Recovery of decayed URL citations. Journal of Informetrics; 7(1), 145–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2012.09.007
Sellitto, C. A (2004). Study of missing web-cites in scholarly articles: Towards an evaluation framework. Journal of Information Science, 30(6) 484-495. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551504047822
Sife, A. S. & Bernard, R. (2013). Persistence and decay of web citations used in theses and dissertations available at the Sokoine National Agricultural Library, Tanzania. International Journal of Education & Development Using Information & Communication Technology, 9(2), 85–94. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1071354.pdf
Sife, A.S. & Lwoga, E.T. (2017). Retrieving vanished Web references in health science journals in East Africa. Information and Learning Sciences, 118 (7/8), 385-392. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2017-0030
Spinellis, D. (2003). The decay and failures of web references. Communications of the ACM, 46(1), 71-77. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/602421.602422 
Tajeddini, O., Azimi, A. & Moghaddam, H. S. (2017). Death of web citations: a serious alarm for authors. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 16(3), 17- 29.
Tajeddini, O., Azimi, A., Sadat-Moosavi, A. & Sharif-Moghaddam, H. (2011). Death of web citations: A serious alarm for authors. Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, 16(3),17–29.
Tajedini, O., Sadatmoosavi, A., Ghazizade, A. & Tajedini, A.  (2018). Investigation of the currency, disappearance and half-life of urls of web resources cited in iranian researchers: A comparative study, International Journal of Information Science and Management, 16(1), 2018, 27-47. Retrieved from https://ijism.isc.ac/article_698265_ab1eb66d82d85b389042dea84ad15880.pdf
Vinay Kumar, D. & Sampath Kumar, B.T. (2017). Prevalence of URLs in Library and Information Science (LIS) Literature: A citation analysis. COLLNET Journal of Scientometrics and Information Management. 11(2), 287-297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09737766.2017.1299390
Vinay Kumar, D. & Sampath Kumar, B.T. (2017). Recovery of vanished URLs: Comparing the efficiency of Internet Archive and Google. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 22(2), 31-43. https://doi.org/10.22452/mjlis.vol22no2.3
Vinay Kumar, D., Sampath Kumar, B.T. & Parameshwarappa, D. R. (2015). URLs Link Rot: Implications for Electronic Publishing, World Digital Libraries: An International Journal, 8(1), 59-66. https://doi.org/10.18329/09757597/2015/8105
Vinay, R. S., Divyashree G. N. & Sampath Kumar, B. T. (2019). Decayed URLs in LIS journal articles: An exploration. In 9th KSCLA National Conference on Library in the Life of the User (pp. 540–544). Department of Studies and Research in Library and Information Science, Tumkur University. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vinay-R-S-2/publication/331554316_Decayed_URLs_in_LIS_Journal_articles_An_Exploration/links/5c7fd0d492851c69505a8385/Decayed-URLs-in-LIS-Journal-articles-An-Exploration.pdf
Wren, J. D. (2008). URL decay in MEDLINE-a 4-year follow-up study. Bioinformatics, 24(11), 1381-1385. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btn127
Wu, Z. (2009). An empirical study of the accessibility of web references in two Chinese academic journals. Scientometrics, 78(3), 481–503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1951-1
Yang, S., Qiu, J. & Xiong, Z. (2010). An empirical study on the utilization of web academic resources in humanities and social sciences based on web citations. Scientometrics, 84(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0142-7  
International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)
Volume 22, Issue 2
April 2024
Pages 193-210
Files
History
  • Receive Date: 21 December 2021
  • Revise Date: 30 March 2024
  • Accept Date: 30 March 2024
Share
How to cite
Statistics