Linking of errata: Current practices in online physical sciences journals

Reader awareness of article corrections can be of critical importance in the physical and biomedical sciences. Comparison of errata and corrigenda in online versions of high-impact physical sciences journals across titles and publishers yielded surprising variability. Of 43 online journals surveyed, 17 had no links between original articles and later corrections. When present, hyperlinks between articles and errata showed patterns in presentation style, but lacked consistency. Variability in the presentation, linking, and availability of online errata indicates that practices are not evenly developed across the field. Comparison of finding tools showed excellent coverage of errata by Science Citation Index, lack of indexing in INSPEC, and lack of retrieval with SciFinder Scholar. The development of standards for the linking of original articles to errata is recommended.