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appears inside two different URLs (Uniform Resource Locators, also known as web links or web addresses):
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449691v/f29
https://n2t.net/ark:/12148/btv1b8449691v/f29
ARKs are especially good at being persistent identifiers.
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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. Irritating as 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 PID) is an identifier that in principle keeps working far into the future, even as things move between websites. Normally when things move, everyone using who ever recorded the old links would need to update those links to use the new URLs. This is hard, error-prone, and expensive, and thatbe told that there are new links, which is next to impossible. 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 identifiers (the one ones originally advertised to users) to another website that's other websites that are currently best able to deal with itthem. Technically, forwarding is called resolution, one step piece of which is redirection.
To To make it work, the hostname of the resolver 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 well-suited to be resolvers (eg, bnf.fr). Some well-known, younger resolvers are n2t.net, identifiers.org, doi.org, handle.net, and purl.org.
How
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do the
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ARKs differ from
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identifiers like
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DOIs,
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Handles,
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PURLs, and
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URNs?
Here's the The short answer . These as that these are all major types of persistent identifiers. Among , and 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.
That is 's not to say that keeping making your identifiers persistent is free of the usual costs of content management, hosting, monitoring, etcand forwarding. You can do those things yourself or via a vendor, but ARKs do not lock you in to a special-purpose resolution silo that also locks out other identifiers.
Is there a longer answer
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?
FirstYes, but first let's dispense with what ARKs, DOIs, Handles, PURLs, and URNs have in common. Their resolvers all forward using ordinary redirection and As seen in these examples, they have similar structure. In these examples,:
https://n2t.net/ark:/99999/12345
https://doi.org/10.99999/12345
https://handle.net/10.99999/12345
https://purl.org/12345
https://???/urn:99999:12345
they 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 identifiersa particular identifier. Finally there's the name, or local identifier, that it assigned (12345). Here are some Some other things these identifier types have in common.:
- All identifiers They all 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 They all require the end provider responsible for the labor of keeping redirection URLs updated.to update forwarding tables as URLs change.
- They all All identifier types, can give access to any kind of thing, whether digital, physical, abstract, person, group, etc.
- All identified They all identify content that is subject to change on future visits.
- They all break regularly and in large numbers (thousands and more).
- They all use very simple redirection built in to every web server since 1995 and done for free by hundreds of URL shortening services.
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.
- For DOIs, Handles, and PURLs, you are required to use their respective resolvers. ARKs and URNs, permit you to use your own resolver.
- To create DOIs and Handles, you are required to pay a membership fee and, for DOIs, per-DOI charges. There are no fees for ARKs, PURLs, and URNs.
- Although you can use your own or a vendor resolver for your ARKs and URNs, all ARKs can be resolved via n2t.net, making it the closest thing to a "global ARK resolver".
- For URNs there is no single global resolver. In order to register to create URNs, you must apply for a URN namespace.
When should I use ARKs compared to
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DOIs, Handles, PURLs, and URNs?
There is nothing inherent in ARKs, DOIs, Handles, PURLs, or URNs that make them more or less suitable to identify any kind of thing in any field, domain, or sector. In that sense they are all equally suitable.
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