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commitment. Accordingly, in the ARK standard, identifiers would refer not only to a web resource, but also to “a promise of stewardship” and metadata about the resource. If a web server was queried with an ARK, it should return the resource itself or some surrogate for it, such as “a table of contents instead of a large complex document.” If a question mark was appended to the ARK, though, it should return a description—metadata—instead, which “must at minimum answer the who, what, when, and why questions concern an expression of the object.” (The scheme also included a guide to
Electronic Resource Citations, a simple format for structuring this metadata.) If two question marks were appended, the server should return the provider’s policies regarding “object persistence, object naming, object fragment addressing, and operational service support.”
216:,” designed in response to the needs of their two organizations, as an IETF working document. In explaining their motivations for creating a new system, Kunze later wrote that “each [persistent identifier] system had specific problems.” In contrast to the decentralized structure of the web, with many independent publishers, Handle and DOI were related centralized systems which charged for inclusion; they were “antithetical,” according to Kunze, “to an implicit principle that Internet standards must not endorse control by any one entity, over access to the networked resources of another entity.” URNs were free, but lacked a resolver discovery services, and, wrote Kunze, “it seemed to me that the IETF community lost interest in creating a whole new Internet indirection infrastructure that would add little to existing web and
27:
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In contrast to these other systems, the ARK scheme proposed that “persistence is purely a matter of service,… neither inherent in an object nor conferred on it by a particular naming syntax.” The most an identifier could do to solve the problem of persistence, then, was to indicate an organization’s
164:
and not a property of a naming syntax. Moreover, that a "persistent identifier" cannot be born persistent, but an identifier from any scheme may only be proved persistent over time. The inflections provide information with which to judge an identifier's likelihood of persistence.
154:
after the URL's hostname, which sets the expectation that, when submitted to a web browser, the URL terminated by '?' returns a brief metadata record, and the URL terminated by '??' returns metadata that includes a commitment statement from the current service
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for information objects of any type. It is widely used by libraries, data centers, archives, museums, publishers, and government agencies to provide reliable references to scholarly, scientific, and cultural objects. In 2019 it was registered as a
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Three generic ARK services have been defined. They are described below in protocol-independent terms. Delivering these services may be implemented through many possible methods given available technology (today's or future).
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announced a collaboration, initially named ARKs-in-the-Open and then the ARK Alliance, to build an international community around ARKs and their use in open scholarship. By 2021, over 800 institutions registered to use ARKs.
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Returns a description of the object. Descriptions are returned in either a structured metadata format or a human readable text format; sometimes one format may serve both purposes.
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Returns (a copy of) the object or a redirect to the same, although a sensible object proxy may be substituted (for instance a table of contents instead of a large document).
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began using ARKs in 2002, and released the Noid (Nice Opaque IDentifiers) software for managing ARKs and other identifiers in 2004. Other early adopters of ARKs included
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461:
Declarations are returned in either a structured metadata format or a human readable text format; sometimes one format may serve both purposes.
540:
294:
239:
186:
201:, which themselves changed over time. Many believed that such systems would contribute to the persistence of web resources over time.
685:
625:
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271:: Name Mapping Authority - optional and replaceable hostname of an organization that currently provides service for the object
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721:
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The ARK and its inflections ('?' and '??') provide access to three facets of a provider's ability to provide persistence.
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731:
143:
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265:: Name Assigning Authority Number - mandatory unique identifier of the organization that originally named the object
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ARKs may be assigned to anything digital, physical, or abstract. Below are examples, as reported (2020) to the
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Standalone descriptions should be accompanied by the modification date and source of the description itself.
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mechanisms, especially in light of the small part that indirection plays in keeping links from breaking.”
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If access is denied, returns an explanation of the object's current (perhaps permanent) inaccessibility.
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Policy subareas may be addressed in separate requests, but the following areas should be covered:
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301:. It contained 530 entries in June 2018, 633 in July 2020, and 754 in April 2021.
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May also return discriminated lists of ARKs that are related to the given ARK.
277:: optional string that extends the base ARK to support access to individual
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103:
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Implicit in the design of the ARK scheme is that persistence is purely
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Returns declarations of policy and support commitments for given ARKs.
242:, the first of several francophone institutions to adopt the scheme.
197:. In each of these standards, indirect identifiers would resolve to
26:
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May also return a discriminated list of alternate object locators.
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public health documents, many from legal discovery (15 million
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381:
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318:
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historical persons, families, and organizations (4 million
325:
353:
706:
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402:
395:
388:
332:
339:
677:
Towards
Electronic Persistence Using ARK Identifiers
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150:A URL that is an ARK is distinguished by the label
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109:
99:
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75:
64:
49:
41:
33:
696:
638:Hierarchy qualifiers begin with a slash character.
352:museum specimens (11 million going on 100 million
507:questions concerning an expression of the object.
380:finding aids and special collections (4 million
177:and other organizations developed standards for
647:Variant qualifiers begin with a dot character.
616:Kunze, J.; Rodgers, R. P. C. (March 8, 2001).
289:A complete NAAN registry is maintained by the
285:(versions, languages, formats) of components.
8:
592:"ARK Alliance: An Interview with John Kunze"
245:In 2018, the California Digital Library and
19:
572:"Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes"
491:A description must at a minimum answer the
366:digitized documents and objects (5 million
16:Form of URLs used as persistent identifiers
210:United States National Library of Medicine
453:Policy service (permanence, naming, etc.)
657:Name Assigning Authority Number registry
585:
583:
581:
611:
609:
563:
618:"The ARK Persistent Identifier Scheme"
18:
590:Meyerl, Jordan (September 14, 2021).
7:
214:The ARK Persistent Identifier Scheme
541:Persistent uniform resource locator
394:educational resources (1.1 million
281:subcomponents of an object, and to
345:bibliographic records (15 million
208:and R. P. Channing Rodgers of the
14:
437:Access service (access, location)
317:genealogical records (8 billion
295:Bibliothèque Nationale de France
240:Bibliothèque nationale de France
25:
686:Internet Engineering Task Force
626:Internet Engineering Task Force
473:object fragment addressing, and
331:scientific records (22 million
324:publisher content (100 million
299:US National Library of Medicine
175:Internet Engineering Task Force
693:(specification of ARK as URI).
600:Society of American Archivists
410:Princeton University Libraries
76:
65:
1:
602:Electronic Resources Section.
313:by the linked organizations.
212:released the first draft of “
181:for web resources, including
476:operational service support.
671:ARK (Archival Resource Key)
387:resource maps (1.5 million
258:https://NMA/ark:/NAAN/Name
204:In 2001, John Kunze of the
144:Uniform Resource Identifier
748:
338:scanned texts (20 million
228:California Digital Library
173:Throughout the 1990s, the
682:The ARK Identifier Scheme
529:Digital object identifier
24:
415:vocabulary terms (9,000
206:University of California
707:EZID identifier manager
408:historic maps (334,000
697:Name-to-Thing Resolver
293:and replicated at the
179:persistent identifiers
104:ark:/53355/cl010066723
547:Uniform resource name
524:Persistent identifier
139:persistent identifier
133:) is a multi-purpose
127:Archival Resource Key
20:Archival Resource Key
722:Electronic documents
691:The “ark” URI scheme
559:Notes and references
79: of digits
483:Description service
162:a matter of service
21:
732:Index (publishing)
467:object permanence,
401:fine art (483,000
396:University of Utah
137:suited to being a
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622:IETF Datatracker
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428:Generic services
347:BnF main catalog
340:Internet Archive
236:Internet Archive
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535:Handle System
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319:FamilySearch
311:ARK Alliance
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291:ARK Alliance
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279:hierarchical
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45:ARK Alliance
42:Organisation
727:Identifiers
368:BnF Gallica
354:Smithsonian
305:Application
88:Check digit
71:8.2 billion
716:Categories
238:, and the
95:, optional
50:Introduced
275:Qualifier
254:Structure
247:DuraSpace
155:provider.
596:bloggERS
537:(Handle)
518:See also
389:RMap Hub
361:UCSF IDL
297:and the
283:variants
82:variable
417:Periodo
382:Merritt
326:Portico
232:Portico
169:History
110:Website
100:Example
55: (
34:Acronym
543:(PURL)
503:, and
234:, the
193:, and
191:Handle
68:issued
549:(URN)
531:(DOI)
505:where
375:SNACC
333:INIST
501:when
497:what
421:YAMZ
263:NAAN
199:URLs
187:PURL
152:ark:
117:.org
115:arks
93:NCDA
57:2001
53:2001
493:who
269:NMA
218:DNS
195:DOI
183:URN
135:URL
131:ARK
125:An
77:No.
66:No.
37:ARK
718::
684:,
624:.
620:.
608:^
598:.
594:.
580:^
499:,
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419:,
189:,
185:,
628:.
574:.
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129:(
59:)
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