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ARKs (Archival Resource Keys) are high-functioning identifiers that lead you to things and to descriptions of those things. For example, this ARK,
https://n2t.net/ark:/67531/metadc107835/
gets to a dissertation, and adding a '?' to the ARK gets you to its description:
https://n2t.net/ark:/67531/metadc107835/?
What's an identifier?
On the internet, an identifier is a URL, or part of a URL. For example, this basic ARK identifier,
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The average lifetime of a URL has been said to be 44 days. At the end of its life, a published URL will give you the dreaded 404 Not Found error. As irritating as that is for most of us, it's a disaster for libraries, archives, museums, and other memory organizations. They want to publish advertise things via persistent identifiers, which should in principle continue to work far into the future . Accurately predicting the future is, of course, not possible, but persistent identifiers can helpeven if those things are moved between memory organizations and their websites. To make any identifier persistent they start by putting it inside a URL that can be the created persistent identifiers to use URLs based at resolvers.
How do ARKs differ from DOIs, Handles, PURLs, and URNs?
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