Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 3, 2026

Perma.cc

Perma.cc is a web archiving service for legal and academic citations founded by the Harvard Library Innovation Lab in 2013.

Last revised
Jun 3, 2026
Read time
≈ 3 min
Length
636 w
Citations
14
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Perma.cc
Page for archiving new links
Country of originUnited States of America
OwnerHarvard Library Innovation Lab
Key peopleJack Cushman
URLperma.cc Edit this at Wikidata
LaunchedSeptember 2013 (2013-09)12
Written inPython

Perma.cc is a web archiving service for legal and academic citations founded by the Harvard Library Innovation Lab in 2013.3

Concept

Perma.cc was created in response to studies showing high incidences of link rot in both academic publications and judicial opinions. By archiving copies of linked resources, and providing them with a permanent URL, Perma.cc is intended to provide longer-term verifiability and context for academic literature and caselaw. Perma.cc is administered by a network of academic and government libraries.

In 2016, Harvard received a $700,000 grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to expand development of Perma.cc.4

Design

The header shown on an archived page source ↗

Perma.cc initiates page saves by user request only, it does not crawl the web and save pages like the Wayback Machine. A user account is required to save a page. Its target audience are organizations such as libraries, academic journals, law courts and school faculty. It provides support for organizational membership and administration of user accounts. Metadata such as notes can be added which are viewable to members within an organization. Pages can be made public or private within an organization. In 2017, Perma.cc added individual accounts limited to 10 free page saves per month, and commercial option for non-academic organizations to create institutional accounts.56 In January 2019, free individual accounts stopped receiving 10 free links on a recurring basis each month.7

Perma.cc saves both a WACZ file and a PNG screenshot of a desired webpage.8 Capture is achieved with Scoop,8 a single-page focused web archiving program created by the Library Innovation Lab.9 WARC playback is handled by ReplayWeb.page.1011

Perma.cc has an API for functions such as adding or deleting pages.12 Perma.cc is part of the Memento network; thus, all public pages can be searched for (by URL) using the Memento API.13

See also

See also

References

References

  1. Chant, Ian. "Perma.cc Aims to Bring Staying Power to Online Legal Citations". Library Journal. Archived from the original on 3 October 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  2. Phillips, Matt (24 September 2013). "Perma.cc". Harvard Library Innovation Lab Blog. Archived from the original on 25 September 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  3. Lepore, Jill (26 January 2015). "What the Web Said Yesterday". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 27 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  4. "Harvard's Perma.cc receives grant to expand its tools for saving sources on the Web". Harvard Law Today. April 14, 2016. Archived from the original on 23 April 2018. Retrieved February 24, 2018.
  5. "Perma.cc for individual users". Archived from the original on 3 April 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017. Anyone can create a free, individual Perma.cc account, which will allow you to create ten links per month.
  6. "Perma Terms Of Service". Archived from the original on 15 May 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  7. Stanton, Clare (2019-01-07). "Introducing Individual Account Subscription Tiers for Perma". Perma.cc Blog. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  8. Stanton, Clare (2023-03-28). "New Release: High Fidelity Capture Engine for Witnessing the Web 🍨". Perma.cc Blog. Archived from the original on 28 March 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
  9. harvard-lil/scoop, Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory, 2025-03-26, archived from the original on 28 March 2025, retrieved 2025-03-28
  10. "New Playback Software Improves Fidelity of your Perma Links". Perma.cc Blog. 2022-08-17. Archived from the original on 28 March 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
  11. Kreymer, Ilya (2022-08-17). "Perma.cc Upgrades to ReplayWeb.page". Webrecorder Blog. Archived from the original on 28 March 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
  12. "Perma.cc API for developers". Perma.cc. Archived from the original on 3 April 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  13. "Memento Depot - perma.cc". Memento. Archived from the original on 12 March 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
External links