Handling Broken Links in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum Two Different Kinds of Link Breakage There are Two Different Kinds of Link Breaks efore we proceed further, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of link breakages that have plagued the Scholarly Societies Project - since they continue to be concerns, even with the scope reduced to societies founded prior to 1850. Broken Links to Society Websites dentifying and fixing broken links to the websites maintained by scholarly societies themselves represents a type of serious problem faced by webmasters the world over. This is probably the breakage that comes most readily to mind one thinks of the maintinence problem posed by broken links. Broken Links to External Ancillary Resources s it happens, there is a significant additional source of broken links in the Scholarly Societies Project. All too often, it has been difficult to establish critical historical information about a scholarly society without pointing to external websites that contains passages of historical information about a particular scholary society. The links to this kind of information are just as likely to break over time as links to the society websites are. Broken Links to Society Websites The Editor Comes Up with an Ingenious Way of Mitigating this Problem n Early February of 2024, it occurred to the Editor that it might be possible to replace an existing reference to a Society website by a line of HTML code that would take as input the string consisting of the latest name of the society, and perform a Google search on it. After extensive testing, it was found that this technique works admirably without exception. And, hence the Editor began to adopt this mitigation measure with all references to society website in the 2nd Edition of the Scholarly Societies Project. But How Well Will This Approach Stand the Test of Time? lthough this technique clearly worked well at the time of testing, but what will happen over time? Suppose that the scholarly society changes its name? Our experience is that, even when a scholarly society changes its name, their new website generally retains some reference to the previous name of the society. A Labour-intensive, Yet Satisfying Undertaking his is a labour-intensive undertaking, since the tiny search facility needs to be hand-tooled for each society. It is expected to be completed for the several hundred websites referenced in the historical section of the Project no later than April of 2024. Broken Links to External Ancillary Resources Most Links to External Source of Historical Information Break within 10 Years n January 2024, as the Editor was scrutinizing the history pages, he encountered again and again broken references to external sources that give (at one time) historical information (like founding dates, and name changes) about the society to which the history page was devoted. At first he tried to find the information elsewhere, often to no avail. He also tried to find similar information elsewhere Locating the Original Information Using the Wayback Machine t eventually occurred to the Editor to attempt to find a link to the missing information page using the Wayback Machine - and then change the broken link address to the stable Wayback Machine address. How successful this approach will be remains to be seen. Reports concerning this will be issued as time goine on. Published 2024, February 13; amended 2024, March 17 Jim Parrott, Editor Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum Sending Email to the Project