HTTP 404-page (not) found: Recovery of decayed URL citations

Study investigates the availability, persistence and half life of URL citations cited in two Indian LIS journals articles published between 2002 and 2010. This study also investigates how researchers can resurrect lapsed URL citations cited in research articles, using Wayback machine. A total of 1290 URLs cited in 472 research articles published in Indian LIS journals spanning a period of 9 years (2002–2010) were extracted. Study found that only 18.91% (1290 out of 6820) of URLs cited in these journal articles. 39.84% of URL citations were not accessible and remaining 60.15% of URL citations were still accessible. The HTTP 404 error message-“page not found” was the overwhelming message encountered and represented 54.86% of all HTTP error messages. However 51.06% URLs were recovered from HTTP 404 error message. Study also noticed that the half-life of URL citations was increased from 6.33 years to 13.85 years after recovering missing URLs from Wayback machine.