Perma.cc is a free service to create permanent, online, archived documents of sources cited by scholars, journals, courts, and others. It is a simple tool to prevent link rot, so your readers will always have access to your references.

When you cite research in the peer-reviewed literature, you can use persistent links such as digital object identifiers (DOIs).

But what if your scholarship depends on citing websites and similar online content? There is a good chance that, over time, links will break and content will disappear or change. 

Perma.cc can help you by saving an archived copy of the content that you can link to in your reference list.

Use Perma.cc when the source you are citing doesn't already have a permanent URL, for example for blog posts, news articles, ephemeral web pages, tweets, etc.

See an example of an archived page here: https://perma.cc/T8U2-994F

Go to https://perma.cc. If you do not have an account, you can create one as an individual and save up to 10 links.

If you need to save more links than that, contact the URI Libraries.

The URI Libraries is a registrar for Perma.cc, which means that we can authorize researchers at URI to save an unlimited number of links. Users can be added individually or in groups, for example editors of a journal, members of a lab or research center, etc. To register as a user affiliated with URI, contact Andrée Rathemacher at andree@uri.edu. If you are the editor of a journal published on DigitalCommons@URI, contact Julia Lovett at jalovett@uri.edu.

Preserving records

1. Go to https://perma.cc/.
2. Log in to your account.
3. Paste or type the URL of the page you want to preserve.
4. Select the appropriate organization or folder to affiliate your link.
5. Click the "Create Perma Link" button.

Citing records

The exact form of your citation will depend on citation practices in your discipline, but here is one example:

Scott Althaus & Kalev Leettaru, Airbrushing History, American Style, Cline Center for Democracy (Nov. 25, 2008), http://www.clinecenter.illinois.edu/airbrushing_history, archived at https://perma.cc/G8PW-798L.

Guides for users

Perma.cc user guide

Guide for academic faculty: [PDF / Google Docs]

Guide for journal editors: [PDF / Google Docs]

Guide for librarians: [PDF / Google Docs]

Guide for registrars (librarians who create Organizations and add Organization Users): [Google Docs]

Assistance with technical issues

Use the Perma.cc contact form

Email info@perma.cc

Perma.cc is developed and maintained by the Harvard Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School Library.

Andrée Rathemacher, 03/2020-