Perma.cc prevents "link rot" (i.e., "page not found" or 404 error pages) and helps ensure that future readers will be able to access the electronic sources cited in law journal articles. Websites and webpages are constantly changing, with content being removed, updated, or moved elsewhere. Perma.cc allows users to preserve links by making archival copies of the webpages. With a Perma link, future readers will be able to see what a webpage looked like at the time when the Perma link was created, even if the webpage is subsequently modified or removed.

Perma.cc allows authors and student editors to feel much more confident about relying on electronic sources in citations. The Bluebook encourages archiving links in Rule 18.

Each journal has an organization account already set up in Perma.cc. Every individual member and editor can be added as an organization user for your journal so everyone can create Perma links during the source and cite process. Law journal members will have control over all of the Perma links generated by other members on that journal (for instance, NULR members will be able to organize or see information about who generated the links created by other NULR members, but will not be able to do this for the links generated by JCLC members). 

If no current members of the executive board have Perma.cc accounts, please contact your journal liaison at the library with the name and email address of the board member(s) who will be responsible for setting up the individual accounts for the other members on the journal. 

Once that person has activated his or her account, he or she should follow these steps to set up Perma.cc accounts for the other members of your journal:

Step 1: Click on your name in the upper right corner of the screen and select "Manage Users." 

Step 2: Click on the "add organization user" button. 

Step 3: Type in the email address of the member or editor who you want to add as a user, then click "Add Organization user." You may also be prompted to fill in their first and last names on the next screen. 

Each new user will receive an email with a link to activate his or her Perma.cc account and will be prompted to create a new password. 

Once you have activated your Perma.cc account, you can begin creating Perma links for the URLs in citations. You can create links either individually or in batches (see below). 

Step 1: Log in to your Perma.cc account using your email address and password. 

Step 2: Copy and and paste the URL that you wish to create a Perma link for into the bar, and select the name of your journal to affiliate it with that organization. Click on the blue "Create Perma Link" button. 

Step 3: After a few seconds, you will see your Perma.cc record. The Perma link will become permanent after 24 hours. You should append the URL of the Perma link in brackets after the URL in the citation. 

Perma.cc now allows you to create Perma links in batches so you can generate Perma links for several URLs at one time instead of one by one. 

Step 1: Log in to your Perma.cc account using your email address and password. 

Step 2: Click on "create multiple links."

Step 3: Select the name of your journal to affiliate the links with that organization. Paste the URLs for which you would like to generate Perma links in the box with one URL per line, then click "Create Links." 

After a few seconds or minutes (depending on how many URLs are in the batch), you will receive a confirmation that the link batch has been completed, and the Perma links accompanying each URL will be listed. 

Perma.cc can archive PDF documents posted online so that readers can access and download these documents using the Perma link in the future, even if the document is later removed from the original website. 

Perma.cc is unable to archive and retain multimedia content, such as audio recordings or videos. However, it still may be useful to create a Perma link for the URL of the webpage where the particular audio recording or video is hosted because that webpage may contain valuable information, such as the title of the video, date it was posted, and a description of the content. 

Rule 18.2.1(d) of The Bluebook encourages archiving Internet sources when a reliable archival tool such as Perma.cc is available. In the citation, the archival URL should be appended following the URL in the citation in brackets.