Robust Links - Demonstrations

Last updated: June 29, 2020

This page lists examples of the use of robustified links.

Reference List demonstration page:

Links in references in the Reference List demonstration page are robustified with the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes. The former attribute contains the URI of a snapshot of the linked resource that was created when referencing it. In the demonstrations, that information is used to provide a "Get from archive" option. The latter attribute contains the datetime of taking the snapshot. In combination with the URI of the original resource provided in the href attribute of the link, it will result in the provision of a "Get near link date" option. This feature will find a snapshot of the bookmarked resource that was created around the time of taking the snapshot, even if the snapshot that was taken is itself not accessible.

• Reference List demo that works with any browser and that has embedded JavaScript to make Robust Links operational.
• Reference List demo that requires a Chrome browser equipped with the Memento Time Travel extension.

A D-Lib Magazine article that features Robust Links:

This D-Lib Magazine article has robustified links with the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes as described above. These information elements are made actionable using the Robust Links JavaScript and CSS code, available in this Robust Links GitHub repository, and linked to by means of the JavaScript DOI and CSS DOI.

robustify.js demonstration page:

The page that demonstrates robustify.js has several links that use the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes to robustify its links. When a link is clicked, a server-side script is called that checks whether it still works.

• If the link is rotten, the user is informed about the link malfunction and is then redirected to a snapshot in a web archive. The nature of the redirection is dependent on the availability of the attributes of robustified links.
  • If data-versionurl is provided, the user is redirected to the snapshot provided in the attribute.
  • If data-versiondate is available, the redirection is based on its datetime value.
• If the link still works, it will function as usual. However, when a data-versionurl or data-versiondate attribute is provided the user is offered a choice: visit the live resource or visit a snapshot that is obtained on the basis of the provided attributes. This approach deals with the content drift aspect of reference rot: a user can visit the snapshot that was created by the web page author to see what the linked page looked like when the link was put in place.

Bookmarks at BibSonomy:

Requires the use of a Chrome browser equipped with the Memento Time Travel extension.

Right-clicking on the title or URI of a bookmarked item will reveal a "Get near link date" option in the Memento extension. Selecting this option will find a snapshot of the bookmarked resource that was created around the time of bookmarking. This option is enabled by means of the provision of the data-versiondate attribute on links with as value the date of bookmarking.