Robust Linking to Web Resources

Robust Linking to Web Resources
@mart1nkle1n
DtMH 2017, 11/15/2017, San Francisco, CA
http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/
Martin Klein
@mart1nkle1n
Research Library
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Acknowledgements:
Herbert Van de Sompel, LANL
Harihar Shankar, LANL
Michael L. Nelson, ODU
Mark Graham, Internet Archive

@mart1nkle1n
2
Slide by Herbert Van de Sompel, 2017
A Managed Collection Desires Reliable Outlinks

@mart1nkle1n
3
Links to another Managed Collection

@mart1nkle1n
4
Links to Web at Large Resources

@mart1nkle1n
5
Link Rot

@mart1nkle1n
6
https://web.archive.org/web/20140101072007/http://netpreserve.org/general-assembly/2013/overview
IIPC
2013

@mart1nkle1n
7
http://netpreserve.org/general-assembly/2013/overview
IIPC
today

@mart1nkle1n
8
Content Drift

@mart1nkle1n
9
https://web.archive.org/web/20161228184110/https://www.epa.gov/climatechange
EPA
12/2016

@mart1nkle1n
10
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/signpost/cc.html
EPA
today

@mart1nkle1n
11
• On the web, all links are subject to reference rot
• Reference rot hinders our ability to follow links as they were
intended when they were put in place
• Link rot: a link stops working all together
• Content drift: The linked content changes over time and
may eventually no longer be representative of the
content that was originally linked
Problem

@mart1nkle1n
12
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115253 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167475
Reference Rot in Scholarly Communication

@mart1nkle1n
13
Link Rot in Scholarly Articles

@mart1nkle1n
14
Link Rot in Scholarly Articles

@mart1nkle1n
15
Reference Rot Over Time - arXiv

@mart1nkle1n
16
• On the web, all links are subject to reference rot
• Reference rot hinders our ability to follow links as they were
intended when they were put in place
• Link rot: a link stops working all together
• Content drift: The linked content changes over time and
may eventually no longer be representative of the
content that was originally linked
How can we:
1. Make links more robust?
2. Make them actionable for humans and machines?
Problem

@mart1nkle1n
17
Robust Links

@mart1nkle1n
18
Robust Links
1. Create a snapshot of referenced resources in a public web
archive

@mart1nkle1n
19
Why multiple archives? They aren’t magic web sites!
They’re just web sites.
If you used Mummify, you’re now left with a bunch of defunct, shortened links like:
https://mummify.it/XbmcMfE3
Slide by Michael L. Nelson, 2016

@mart1nkle1n
20
Robust Links
1. Create a snapshot of referenced resources in a publically available
web archive
2. Decorate links with:
• URI of archived snapshot
• datetime of archiving
• resource’s original URI

@mart1nkle1n
21
Link Decoration with Standard HTML
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20171108053054/http://sfgov.org/"
data-originalurl="http://sfgov.org/"
data-versiondate="2017-11-08">
City and County of San Francisco</a>
http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/spec

@mart1nkle1n
22
Link Decoration via API
http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/api/json/http://web.archive.org/web/20171108053054/http://sfgov.org/
• Submit URI of an archived
snapshot
• Retrieve Robust Links
HTML snippet
• Copy and paste into your
application
http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/api/json/{URI-of-archived-snapshot}

@mart1nkle1n
23
Robust Links
1. Create a snapshot of referenced resources in a publically available
web archive
2. Decorate links with:
• URI of archived snapshot
• datetime of archiving
• resource’s original URI
Benefits:
• Can visit archived, immutable version of referenced resource
• Original URI & capture datetime allow finding versions in other
web archives
• Uniform, machine-actionable

@mart1nkle1n
24
Robust Links for Machines
1. JavaScript
2. Browser extensions
a. Memento for Chrome
b. IA Chrome Extension

@mart1nkle1n
25
Robust Links in Action - JavaScript
http://dx.doi.org/10.1045/november2015-vandesompel

@mart1nkle1n
26
Robust Links in Action - JavaScript
http://dx.doi.org/10.1045/november2015-vandesompel

@mart1nkle1n
27
Robust Links in Action – Memento for Chrome
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/memento-time-travel/jgbfpjledahoajcppakbgilmojkaghgm

@mart1nkle1n
28
Robust Links in Action – Memento for Chrome
http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/demo/uri_references.html

@mart1nkle1n
29
Robust Links in Action – IA Chrome Extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak

@mart1nkle1n
30

@mart1nkle1n
31

@mart1nkle1n
32

@mart1nkle1n
33
Take-Aways
• Links on the web are subject to reference rot
• “Robustifying” them (manually or via API calls) can help alleviate the
problem
• Link decorations as proposed by Robust Links are
• based on HTML standards
• machine-actionable
• Organizations such as the Internet Archive, Wikipedia,
News Publishers can help with adoption

Robust Linking to Web Resources

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (6)

Ähnlich wie Robust Linking to Web Resources

Ähnlich wie Robust Linking to Web Resources (20)

Mehr von Martin Klein

Mehr von Martin Klein (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Robust Linking to Web Resources