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https://n2t.net/ark:/67531/metadc107835/
gets you to a dissertation, and adding a '?' to on the end of the ARK gets you to its description:
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is part of appears inside two different URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), also known as web links or web addresses):
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449691v/f29
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The average lifetime of a URL has been said to be 44 days. At the end of its life, a URL link breaks, which means it gives you the dreaded "404 Not Found" error. As irritating Irritating as it that is – and most of us have seen it happen – it's a disaster for libraries, archives, museums, and other memory organizations. A persistent identifier (sometimes abbreviated to abbreviated PID) is an identifier that in principle will continue to work keeps working far into the future, even as things move between websites. Normally when things move, we're burdened with broken links and having to learn to use their new URLs (links)everyone using the old links would need to update those links to use the new URLs. This is hard, error-prone, and expensive, and that's where identifier resolvers come in.
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A resolver is a website that is especially good at forwarding an incoming identifier (the one originally advertised to users) to whatever another website is that's currently best suited able to deal with it. To . Technically, forwarding is called resolution, one step of which is redirection. To make it work, the hostname of the resolver itself is must be carefully chosen so that it never has to be changed. Memory organizations, some of them centuries old, tend to have website hostnames that are especially stable as resolvers. Other well-suited to be resolvers (eg, bnf.fr). Some well-known, younger resolvers include are n2t.net, identifiers.org, doi.org, handle.net, and purl.org.
How
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does the ARK differ from
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identifier types, like DOI, Handle, PURL, and
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URN?
Here's the short answer. These are all major kinds types of persistent identifiers. Among them, ARKs are the only mainstream, non-siloed, non-paywalled identifiers that you can register to use in about 24 hours. Over 500 registered organizations have created an estimated 3.2 billion ARKs in the world, and no one has ever paid for the right to create them.
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First, let's dispense with what these identifiers ARKs, DOIs, Handles, PURLs, and URNs have in common. Their resolvers all forward using ordinary web redirection and they have similar structure. In these examples,
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https://???/urn:99999:12345
there's always they all start with the protocol (https://) plus a hostname, followed by the Name Assigning Authority (99999, 10.99999, or purl.org), which is the organization that created the identifiers. Finally there's the name, or local identifier, that it assigned (12345). Here are some other things these identifier types have in common.
- All identifiers fail to stop the major causes of broken links: loss of funding, natural disaster, war, deliberate removal, human error, and provider neglect.
- All identifier types make the end provider responsible for the labor of keeping redirection URLs updated.
- All identifier types, can give access to any kind of thing, whether digital, physical, abstract, etc.
- All identified content is subject to change on future visits.
So how do these identifiers differ? Here's a short list.
- When (not if, since all things pass) the https:// protocol and the hostname cease to exist, only ARKs and URNs will still indicate the kind of identifier that remains.
- To create For DOIs, Handles, and PURLs, you are required to use their respective resolvers. There are no such silos with ARKs and URNs, for which permit you can to use your own resolver.
- To create DOIs and Handles, you are also required to pay a membership fee and, for DOIs, per-DOI charges. There are no such paywalls fees for ARKs, PURLs, and URNs.
- It is hard to generalize how people use these identifiers. DOIs, for example, used to be known primarily as identifiers for scientific and scholarly publications, with a mature community and service offering around "Crossref DOIs", but since 2013 enough new assigners have joined that it is hard to make generalizations about DOIs.
- Although you can use your own or a vendor resolver for your ARKs and URNs, all ARKs can be resolved via n2t.net. Thus n2t.net is , making it the closest thing to a "global ARK resolver".
- For URNs there is no single global resolver, and in . In order to register as a Name Assigning Authority to create URNs, you must apply for a URN namespace.
When should I use ARKs compared to other identifier types?
There is nothing inherent in ARKs, DOIs, Handles, PURLs, or URNs that make them more or less suitable to identify anything in any field, domain, or sector. In that sense they are all equally suitable.
Where they differ are in the nature of services and sociology and buzz.
any of these identifier It is hard to generalize how people use these identifiers. DOIs, for example, used to be known primarily as identifiers for scientific and scholarly publications, with a mature community and service offering around "Crossref DOIs", but newer kinds of DOIs, such as those from DataCite and EIDR, are changing the nature of the DOI.
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Don't
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identifier types differ in metadata flexibility, content negotiation, inflections, and suffix passthrough?
Only one resolver, n2t.net, supports all of these features, and it does so for any identifier stored with appropriate metadata. Contrary to popular belief, identifiers don't do anything – it's their resolvers that do or don't support these features. For example, suffix passthrough is a feature supported by n2t.net and purl.org ("partial redirect"), but not by doi.org or handle.net.
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