The web is a powerful tool for research. However, websites do change and even dissapear. This can be a real pain. Trinity College, Bristol, requires that undergrads include printouts of any websites which are used.This is necessary but is also a pain.

However,  their seems to be a solution to this problem. Bible and Technology blog have called attention to WebCiteArchive which allows a static and permenant copy of the website to be saved with a permanent link to this.

WebCite^®, a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium, is an on-demand archiving system for webreferences (cited webpages and websites, or other kinds of Internet-accessible digital objects), which can be used by authors, editors, and publishers of scholarly papers and books, to ensure that cited webmaterial will remain available to readers in the future. If cited webreferences in journal articles, books etc. are not archived, future readers may encounter a “404 File Not Found” error when clicking on a cited URL. Try it! Archive a URL here. It’s free and takes only 30 seconds.