Dellavalle's concerns reflect those of a growing number of scientists and scholars who are nervous about their increasing reliance on a medium that is proving far more ephemeral than archival. In one recent study, one-fifth of the Internet addresses used in a Web-based high school science curriculum disappeared over 12 months. | Another study, published in January, found that 40 percent to 50 percent of the URLs referenced in articles in two computing journals were inaccessible within four years. --Rick Weiss
--Web sites vanish so fast scientific papers just can't keep up... (SF Gate)
I wonder how many of these broken URLs are caused by the actions of webmasters who temporarily publish articles for free, and then pull them behind pay-per-view walls. A researcher who cites a URL that appears to be free may not know it has an expiry date. FYI, the above article originated from the Washington Post, whose free articles expire after a few weeks.
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