Archival Resource Keys (ARKs)

Links

• Inside CDL: Archival Resource Key (http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/ark/) - Overview of technology
• Towards Electronic Persistence Using ARK Identifiers - Excellent overview of the issues that ARK Identifiers are trying to address ("...what people really want is the kind of convenient access to which they have become accustomed on the Web. ...what we're looking for are persistent actionable identifiers, where an actionable identifier is one that widely available tools such as web browsers can use to convert a simple "click" into access to the object or to a doorway leading directly to access...")

Form

where:

• NMAH is the Name Mapping Authority Hostport, a (temporary) internet address to which ARK service requests may be sent - this is optional and not part of the ARK for the purpose of identity comparison
• NAAN is the Name Assigning Authority Number, an assigned identifier unique to the body which originally assigned this ARK
• Name is a semantically opaque unique name assigned by the NAAN
• Qualifier is an optional service entry point supported by the NMA to access hierarchical components of the identified object, or versions of the object

For example: http://foobar.zaf.org/ark:/12025/654xz321/s3/f8.05v.tiff

where:

• foobar.zaf.org is the NMAH
• 12025 is the NAAN
• 654xz321 is the Name
• /s3/f8.05v.tiff is the Qualifier

The following three ARKs are considered identical:

• http://loc.gov/ark:/12025/654xz321
• http://rutgers.edu/ark:/12025/654xz321
• ark:/12025/654xz321

Any ARK provides access to three things:

• The ARK itself provides access to a data object
• The ARK followed by a single question mark, '?', provides access to a metadata record
• The ARK followed by two question marks, '??', provides access to a commitment statement from the current provider (a service agreement)

Discussion

From Rod Page:

Another GUID system that might be of interest is ARK (http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/ark/). The site describing this approach has a nice discussion of the issues surrounding persistent identifiers, and various solutions such as DOIs and URNs (of which LSIDs are an example). I think this system should be looked at closely, before we limit discussion to DOIs or LSIDs.

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