n. (abbr. URL)a string of characters that specifies a location of an object or service on a network or the internet; a website addressLandis 1995, 130Each file on a Web-accessible server has a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which is the discrete Web address for that file.Fox 1997, 340–341MARC field 856 permits a cataloger to embed a link in the catalog record, in the form of a uniform resource locator (URL) address that points to another electronic document such as an EAD finding aid. In this scenario, the patron searches the MARC descriptions of archival collections in the on-line catalog using the searching capabilities of the catalog software. When the entry for a relevant collection is displayed, the reference to the electronic version of the finding aid appears as a highlighted browser hyperlink; clicking on that link loads the finding aid into the user’s browser.EAD 1999Uniform Resource Locator (URL): A string, structured according to the syntax of Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 1738, that specifies the location of a resource on the Internet such as a file, an image or a downloadable document. A URL includes the type of naming scheme employed (http, ftp, telnet, news, file, etc.), a separating colon, the location of the host, and a path to the resource. URLs may be either absolute (containing the entire address of the resource) or relative (containing only a part of the address). Partial addresses may be used as long as the processing agent is able to resolve the full locations based on their context. Relative URLs enable terseness in documentation and the dynamic generation of links; they also minimize referential problems that may occur when hierarchical naming systems or file locations are modified.W3C/IETF 2001During the early years of discussion of web identifiers (early to mid 90s), people assumed that an identifier type would be cast into one of two (or possibly more) classes. An identifier might specify the location of a resource (a URL) or its name (a URN) independent of location. Thus a URI was either a URL or a URN.RFC 3986, 2005, 7The term “Uniform Resource Locator” (URL) refers to the subset of URIs that, in addition to identifying a resource, provide a means of locating the resource by describing its primary access mechanism (e.g., its network “location”).Crymble 2010, 137Contrary to what one might think, it is still possible to categorize the type of site referenced by a broken link (own website, external blog, etc.) because the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), also known as the website address, contains information that indicates to which website the link was meant to point. For example, the link http://myblog.com/post-from-last-month may no longer work, but we can determine who owns the site as well as the site’s format by visiting the URL http://myblog.com/.Pitt Libraries 2024A URL, also known as a web address, identifies a web resource, its location on a computer network, and how to access it. It is a link that can retrieve a web-based resource. Example: https://www.library.pitt.edu.
