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Perma.cc

Guide for using the archival tool that creates citable records of web sources

Creating long-term citation links

When a user creates a Perma.cc link, Perma.cc saves a copy of the content of the referenced web page and generates a link to the archived record of the page. Regardless of what happens to the original source, the archived record will always be available through its Perma.cc link.

The University Library has an institutional account with Perma.cc.  UCSC students and faculty can have 'organizations' associated with this institutional account.   An organization can be a single researcher or include a group of research assistants, a lab, or a student group. To request an individual account or organization, contact the library.

UCSC Library Perma Policies

Perma.cc

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.

Use

Use Perma when the source you are citing doesn't already have a permanent URL. Blog posts, news articles, working papers and other ephemeral web pages are good candidates for archiving with Perma.

Access

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

As a partner library in the Perma.cc network, the UCSC Library can establish Perma.cc organization accounts for unlimited permanent linking. Contact the Library to request an organization account.

Policies

  1. Faculty and journal editors are responsible for their Perma.cc content and should consider carefully who should be given access to the 'organization's' files.

  2. Faculty and journal editors are responsible for keeping the rosters of their organizations up-to-date and should remove any users who should no longer be affiliated with the organization.

  3. The library's Perma.cc registrars will periodically review the roster of users and remove any non-faculty, non-academic support staff, members who have not used Perma.cc in over a year. Removing a user account does not remove perma-links created by that user.

When to Use Perma.cc

  • Perma.cc is best for creating a link to ephemeral or temporary content such as working papers and news sites.
  • If the webpage or article has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), cite the DOI instead of a Perma.cc link.
  • Perma.cc only captures a single web page, not the linked pages or embedded content, such as YouTube videos.  If you need to capture an entire site, contact the library about using a different tool, Archive-It, which captures and stores whole sites in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
  • If a site is restricted or behind a paywall, Perma.cc will make the link private to the organization and it will not be available for public sharing.