OCLC and the Internet Archive today announced the results of a year-long cooperation to ensure the future of purl.org. The organizations have worked together to build a new service hosted by the Internet Archive that will manage the persistent URLs and sub-domain redirections for purl.org, purl.com and purl.net.
Since its introduction by OCLC Research in 1995, purl.org has provided a source of Persistent URLs (PURLs) that redirect users to the correct hosting location for documents, data, and websites as they change over time.
With more than 2,500 users including publishing and metadata organizations such as Dublin Core, purl.org has become important to the smooth functioning of the Web, data on the Web, and the Semantic Web in particular.
Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive said “We share a common belief with OCLC that what is shared on the Web should be preserved, so it makes perfect sense for us to add this important service to our set of tools and services including the WayBack Machine as part of our mission to promote universal access to all knowledge.”
Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC welcomed the announcement as “a major step in the future sustainability and independence of this key part of the Web and linked data architectures. OCLC is proud to have introduced persistent URLs and purl.org in the early days of the Web and we have continued to host and support it for the last twenty years. We welcome the move of purl.org to the Internet Archive which will help them continue to archive and preserve the World’s knowledge as it evolves.”
All previous PURL definitions have been transferred to Internet Archive and can continue to be maintained by their owners through a new web-based interface located at here.
About OCLC:
OCLC is a nonprofit global library cooperative providing shared technology services, original research and community programs so that libraries can better fuel learning, research and innovation. Through OCLC, member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries gain efficiencies through OCLC’s WorldShare, a complete set of library management applications and services built on an open, cloud-based platform. It is through collaboration and sharing of the world’s collected knowledge that libraries can help people find answers they need to solve problems. Together as OCLC, member libraries, staff and partners make breakthroughs possible
About Internet Archive:
The Internet Archive (archive.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.
Thank you
All previous PURL definitions have been transferred to Internet Archive and can continue to be maintained by their owners through a new web-based interface located at
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“mission to promote universal access to all knowledge”
Hippie talk. What’s next? promote universal access to my home?. Hey, let’s steal everything and share it for free, so everyone’s equally poor and nothing of value will ever be created because it’s stolen the day it’s published. Your not a library. That’s just in your imagination.
Fantastic! Can you point us in the direction of the REST API documentation?