Scaling Up Perma.cc: Ensuring the Integrity of the Digital Scholarly Record

IMLS awarded the Harvard Library Innovation Lab a National Digital Platform grant to further develop the Lab's Perma.cc web archiving service. The funds will be used to provide technical enhancements to support an expanded user base, aid in outreach efforts to implement Perma.cc in the nation's academic libraries, and develop a commercial model for the service that will sustain the free service for the academic community. Perma.cc is a web archiving tool that puts the ability to archive a source in the hands of the author who is citing it. Once saved, Perma.cc assigns the source a new URL, which can be added to the original URL cited in the author's work, so that if the original link rots or is changed the Perma.cc URL will still lead to the original source. Perma.cc is being used widely in the legal community with great success; the IMLS grant will make the tool available to other areas of scholarship where link rot occurs and will provide a solution for those in the commercial arena who do not currently have one.