{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,1]],"date-time":"2026-03-01T08:41:11Z","timestamp":1772354471156,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2011,2,15]],"date-time":"2011-02-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1297728000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2011,2,15]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>The aim of this paper is to assess and catalogue the magnitude of URL attrition in a high\u2010impact, open access (OA) general medical journal.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>All <jats:italic>Public Library of Science Medicine (PLoS Medicine)<\/jats:italic> articles for 2005\u20102007 were evaluated and the following items were assessed: number of entries per issue; type of article; number of references per entry; number of references that contained URLs; and the access date listed for each URL citation. URLs were then evaluated for accessibility status (i.e. active or defunct).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>In total, 1,133 articles were published from 2005\u20102007 in <jats:italic>PLoS Medicine<\/jats:italic>. The 1,133 articles contained 28,177 references, with 2,503 (8.9 per cent) identified as URLs. Non\u2010research articles accounted for a substantially higher percentage of URL references (17.4 per cent) compared to research articles (4.2 per cent). Almost 17 per cent of the URL references were defunct and the rate of URL attrition increased as time elapsed.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Information management policy makers need to re\u2010examine the importance of preserving the internet materials long term. Both publisher and author should expand efforts to preserve internet materials. Common guidelines should be developed (e.g. by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) and implemented by all publishers to address URL use as references.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This article will be of interest to those in the field.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/00330331111107420","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2011,2,12]],"date-time":"2011-02-12T11:57:14Z","timestamp":1297511834000},"page":"98-106","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Disappearing act"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"45","author":[{"given":"Aragudige","family":"Nagaraja","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shine A.","family":"Joseph","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hyla H.","family":"Polen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kevin A.","family":"Clauson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Anderson, N.R., Tarczy\u2010Hornoch, P. and Bumgarner, R.E. (2006), \u201cOn the persistence of supplementary resources in biomedical publications\u201d, BMC Bioinformatics, Vol. 7 No. 1, p. 260, available at: www.biomedcentral.com\/content\/pdf\/1471\u20102105\u20107\u2010260.pdf (accessed September 13, 2010).","DOI":"10.1186\/1471-2105-7-260"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aronsky, D., Madani, S., Carnevale, R.J., Duda, S. and Feyder, M.T. (2007), \u201cThe prevalence and inaccessibility of internet references in the biomedical literature at the time of publication\u201d, Journal of the Medical Informatics Association, Vol. 14, pp. 232\u20104, available at: http:\/\/jamia.bmj.com\/content\/14\/2\/232.full.pdf (accessed September 13, 2010).","DOI":"10.1197\/jamia.M2243"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Carnevale, R.J. and Aronsky, D. (2007), \u201cThe life and death of URLs in five biomedical informatics journals\u201d, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Vol. 76, pp. 269\u201073.","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijmedinf.2005.12.001"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b4","unstructured":"Crichlow, R., Winbush, N. and Davies, S. (2004), \u201cAccessibility and accuracy of web page references in major medical journals\u201d, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 292 No. 22, pp. 2723\u20104, available at: http:\/\/jama.ama\u2010assn.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/292\/22\/2723\u2010b (accessed September 13, 2010)."},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dellavalle, R.P., Hester, E.J., Heiling, L.F., Drake, A.L., Kuntzman, J.W., Graber, M. and Schilling, L.M. (2003), \u201cInformation science going, going, gone: lost internet references\u201d, Science, Vol. 302 No. 5646, pp. 787\u20108.","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1088234"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ducut, E., Liu, F. and Fontelo, P. (2008), \u201cAn update on uniform resource locator (URL) decay in MEDLINE abstracts and measures for its mitigation\u201d, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, Vol. 8 No. 23, available at: www.biomedcentral.com\/1472\u20106947\/8\/23 (accessed September 13, 2010).","DOI":"10.1186\/1472-6947-8-23"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Falagas, M.E., Karveli, E.A. and Tritsaroli, V.I. (2008), \u201cThe risk of using the internet as reference resource: a comparative study\u201d, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Vol. 77 No. 4, pp. 280\u20106.","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijmedinf.2007.07.001"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hester, E.J., Heiling, L.F., Drake, A.L., Johnson, K.R., Vu, C.T., Schilling, L.M. and Dellavalle, R.P. (2004), \u201cInternet citations in oncology journals: a vanishing resource?\u201d, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 96 No. 12, pp. 969\u201071, available at: http:\/\/jnci.oxfordjournals.org\/cgi\/reprint\/96\/12\/969 (accessed September 13, 2010).","DOI":"10.1093\/jnci\/djh181"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kelly, D.P., Hester, E.J., Johnson, K.R., Heilig, L.F., Drake, A.I., Schilling, L.M. and Dellavalle, R.P. 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(2003), \u201cThe decay and failures of web references\u201d, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 46 No. 1, pp. 71\u20107.","DOI":"10.1145\/602421.602422"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Stader, C.R. and Hamill, F.D. (2007), \u201cRotten but not forgotten: weeding and maintenance of URLs for electronic resources in The Ohio State University online catalog\u201d, Serials Librarian, Vol. 53 Nos 1\/2, pp. 163\u201077.","DOI":"10.1300\/J123v53n01_13"},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b14","unstructured":"Suber, P. (2008), \u201cGratis and libre open access\u201d, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, No. 124, available at: www.earlham.edu\/\u223cpeters\/fos\/newsletter\/08\u201002\u201008.htm (accessed September 13, 2010)."},{"key":"key2022020919544610200_b15","unstructured":"Taylor, M.K. and Hudson, D. 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