Technology Brief: The Shadow Uniform Resource Locator: Standardizing Citations of Electronically Published Materials

Citation of scientific materials published on the Internet is often cumbersome because of unwieldy uniform resource locators (URLs). The authors describe a format for URLs that simplifies citation of scholarly materials. Its use depends on a simple HTML device, the "refresh page." Uniform citation would follow this format: [Author I. Title of article. http:// domain/year/month-day(e#).html]. The HTML code for such a page is: (HTML) (head) (meta HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL= http://Actual-URL/ for-article/ referred-to/ incitation.html") (/head) (/HTML). The code instructs the browser to suppress the content of the refresh page and bring up the title page of the cited article instead. Citations would be succinct and predictable. An electronic journal would not need to alter its existing file hierarchy but would need to establish a distinct domain name and maintain a file of refresh pages. Utilization of the "shadow" URL would bring us one step closer to truly universal resource locators.