Decay of URL References cited in DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

The present study was conducted to examine the accessibility and corrosion of web references cited in articles of DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology. A total of 1921 web references cited in 273 articles for five years from 2014-2018 were identified and checked to test their accessibility in terms of decay and persistence. Nearly 23.31% web references disappeared with passage of time. The results revealed that older the age of URL references, higher the percentage of inactive URL references. The .gov domain was found to be most constant with 95.99% accessibility rate. The average half-life for the missing web references during 2014-2018 was 6.55. The permanency of online resources is not assured because of the corrosion of web references but collective efforts are required to preclude the corrosion of web references