From cradle to grave: The life cycle of a digital learning object

Abstract

Most librarians have probably experienced finding that a website they liked has disappeared, perhaps a video on YouTube, a tutorial, or even just an informative webpage. Sometimes the URL has simply changed, and the item can be found again. Other times the item has truly been retired. Without trying to track down the original creator or hosting body, we may never know exactly what happened nor why. Since we also place links to some of these items on our library webpages, disappearing websites create broken links or “link rot.” Librarians are also creators of some of these disappearing websites.