TinyURL
BMJ 2008; 337 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39451.474398.DE (Published 28 August 2008) Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a564
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Dear Sir,
The BMJ editor expresses a caveat against Simon Scott's suggestion
that TinyURL addresses should be used in place of full URLs, pointing out
the disastrous consequences if TinyURL were to cease operating. This
presupposes that we must have one or the other, and yet there is no reason
not to include both. Dr Scott gives an example in which
http://www.bma.org.uk/pressrel.nsf/wlu/SGOY-79FKE6?OpenDocument&vw=wfmms
becomes http://tinyurl.com/28fuhd. An alternative would be to append the
abbreviated url; if a convention is established such as use of curly
brackets, only the last few characters need be printed. Dr Scott's example
would become http://www.bma.org.uk/pressrel.nsf/wlu/SGOY-
79FKE6?OpenDocument&vw=wfmms {28fuhd}.
Even if TinyURL ever ceases to function, full url addresses will be
available; so long as TinyURL continues to function readers continue to
enjoy the benefit of easy to type web addresses.
In a similar vein, it would be very simple for reference lists to
include PMIDs assigned by the US National Library of Medicine. A reference
like "Campbell, K. 2007, "Exploring the non-viral infectious causes of
cancer", Nurs.Times., vol. 103, no. 25, pp. 30-31." can be uniquely
identified by just 8 digits - 17649767. Anyone wishing to note a reference
from a paper could merely record the PMID and retrieve the reference from
PubMed at any time. Most reference management software automatically
records the PMID when downloading references for PubMed, so all that is
required is a minor amendment to
the output style definition to include the PMID.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I think the BMJ Editor has a point. There is no guarantee that any
internet company will stay active. However, this does not detract from
the utility of the TinyURL concept.
Would it not be a good idea for each journal publisher to offer a
similar service to authors submitting a paper to their journal? Not only
will the links be tidied, but they will be maintained for the lifetime of
the journal.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Don't forget that TinyUrl is not the only option available for this purpose. There's also:
- SnipURL which changes your long URL to http://snipurl.com/... but it lets you choose what comes next making it easier to remember
- and there's DigBig which is specifically for work purposes
- finally, authors might want to consider using DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) if they're referring to journal articles, which were designed specifically to provide a permanent, stable URL for resources.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Beware of blocking
I have found that some NHS trusts block access to tinyurl.com
addresses.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests