Capturing the web at large: a critique of current web referencing practices

The Internet and the cultural phenomena that exist online are increasingly attracting academic awareness, and e-materials both supplement and replace physical materials. These new opportunities come with a range of challenges. Websites are connected in new and unfamiliar ways, the amount of data easily surpasses what we have experienced previously, and we do not yet have an infrastructure that can lend prober support to the increased scholarly use of web resources [1-2]. This paper is an attempt to grapple with one of the core challenges, namely our ability to provide precise and persistent references to web material. The paper charts prevailing ideals and practices regarding web references within the Humanities. We highlight the challenges based on an analysis of web references in two case studies – a selection of Danish master’s theses from 2015 and academic books on contemporary Danish literature. We propose a new best practice that is consistent with good scientific practice in terms of both precision and persistency, which cannot be obtained following the existing standards.