[Air-L] Inclusion of short links in academic publications?

[David Brake]

My objection to using shortened URLs academically is more fundamental - it adds an additional potential point of failure between the reader and the target address. URL shortening companies can go bust, can be blocked or just go offline temporarily.

I note that ironically the folks behind DOIs have themselves produced a DOI-shortening service http://shortdoi.org/ . But if the DOI folks go bust we are all in trouble...

On 22 Jul 2011, at 15:59, yana breindl <ybreindl at ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Thank you all for your comments!
> 
> The reason I asked is not because of a word limit but because one of my
> committee members suggested I'd use short links to ease access for readers
> of the print dissertation. I do have quite a lot of electronic sources as
> footnotes in some of the chapters and he mentioned he'd have typed a
> shortened url but not a long one.
> 
> An alternative would be to include short urls in the footnotes and add an
> appendix with corresponding long links. I'm not sure it's worth the hassle
> though.
> 
> 
> 
> On 22 July 2011 16:39, Sharon Haleva Amir <sharon at trebcon.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Yana, the only advantage I can think of regarding the usage of shortened
>> URL
>> is if you're writing an article and there is a words' limitation (as long
>> as
>> the limitation refers to the bibliography/footnotes as well as the article
>> itself), as sometimes the URLs can be quite long.
>> 
>> I think that the need to shorten texts (for twitting etc.) was the basic
>> rational for establishing such services.
>> 
>> 
>> Best Wishes,
>> Sharon Haleva Amir, HCLT Fellow
>> (PhD Candidate) Faculty of Law,
>> University of Haifa, ISRAEL.
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> http://www.coolcite.com/user/1694
>> http://weblaw.haifa.ac.il/en/research/resstudents/pages/sharonha.aspx
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
>> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of yana breindl
>> Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 11:27 AM
>> To: Air-L at listserv.aoir.org
>> Subject: [Air-L] Inclusion of short links in academic publications?
>> 
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> I was wondering what your thoughts were concerning the use of shortened
>> URLs
>> (e.g. tinyURL, bit.ly etc.) to reference electronic sources in a
>> dissertation or other academic publication (along with the title, date,
>> etc.
>> possibly an annexe with the long URL). Has this been done already? Is it
>> acceptable? Are there important differences between various shortening
>> sites?
>> 
>> Thank you,
>> 
>> Yana
>> 
>> 
>> ---------------------
>> Yana BREINDL
>> 
>> Ph.D Candidate
>> Dépt des sciences de l'information et de la communication (SIC)
>> Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
>> 
>> Tél.: + 32 (0)2 650 44 46
>> E-mail: ybreindl at ulb.ac.be
>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Yana BREINDL
> 
> Doctorante
> Dépt des sciences de l'information et de la communication (SIC)
> Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
> 
> Tél.: + 32 (0)2 650 44 46
> E-mail: ybreindl at ulb.ac.be
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Yana BREINDL
> 
> Doctorante
> Dépt des sciences de l'information et de la communication (SIC)
> Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
> 
> Tél.: + 32 (0)2 650 44 46
> E-mail: ybreindl at ulb.ac.be
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
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