Uniform resource locator decay in dermatology journals: author attitudes and preservation practices.

Objectives: To describe dermatology journal uniform resource locator (URL) use and persistence and to better understand the level of control and awareness of authors regarding the availability of the URLs they cite.

Design: Software was written to automatically access URLs in articles published between January 1, 1999, and September 30, 2004, in the 3 dermatology journals with the highest scientific impact. Authors of publications with unavailable URLs were surveyed regarding URL content, availability, and preservation.