(Prepared by Julien Raemy on the basis of this doc.)
<logo>
ARK Alliance Newsletter, 2021, Volume 1, Issue 1
We are thrilled to announce the ARK Alliance. The ARK Alliance is the newly minted name for the global community that uses ARKs (Archival Resource Keys) as persistent identifiers in the scholarly ecosystem. That community was created by the very successful ARKs-in-the-Open project, begun in December 2018, as a collaboration between the California Digital Library (CDL) and LYRASIS/DuraSpace. With the foundation laid, the established initiative will go forward in partnership with LYRASIS as the ARK Alliance.
The community at a glance
Growth, numbers, map
N2T ARK resolutions in 2019
The new brand
Besides the new name, we have a new website, arks.org. It’s early days so the site is still in the process of incorporating material held at the ARKsInTheOpen.org wiki and at the N2T.net resolver. Only ARK-specific information pages will move from N2T, which will carry on uninterrupted as the global ARK resolver.
The ARK Alliance Working Groups and Advisory Group will continue to be supported by the ARKsInTheOpen.org wiki.
There is also a new twitter handle: @arks_org. All followers of the former handle (@ARKsInTheOpen) are automatically already followers of the new handle. The old hashtag, #ARKsInTheOpen, is deprecated.
Since our last community update
Since our last community update [refxxx]
The ARKs in the Open (AITO) newsletter is published quarterly to provide an overview of the latest activities of the open and international initiative established around Archival Resource Keys (ARKs) and their use as persistent identifiers in the open scholarly ecosystem.
––––––––––––––––––––––-
The ARKs in the Open (AITO) newsletter is published quarterly to provide an overview of the latest activities of the open and international initiative established around Archival Resource Keys (ARKs) and their use as persistent identifiers in the open scholarly ecosystem.
Announcements
Over 600 organizations assign ARKs
As of April 2020, more than 600 organizations have registered to create ARK identifiers. (...)
ARKs in the Open: 3.2 billion Persistent Identifiers
Bess Missell (Smithsonian Institution), Karen Hanson (Ithaka), Tom Creighton (FamilySearch International), and John Kunze (California Digital Library) gave a presentation last April at the CNI Spring 2020 virtual event where they shared the most recent developments on the ARK scheme, the AITO project as well as implementation experiences from each of their institutions. The presentation was recorded and is available at the following address: https://vimeo.com/412227303.
INCIPIT - an ARK allocation service based in Switzerland
INCIPIT is a one-year project led by the Haute école de gestion de Genève which aims to develop a complementary infrastructure in Switzerland for the low-cost attribution of persistent identifiers to any concept or resource based on the ARK scheme. While having a Swiss scope, INCIPIT 2020 is involved in the AITO initiative as well as collaborating with the California Digital Library, notably on a shared software approach to mint identifiers.
AITO Groups’ latest updates
AITO is composed of several interest groups with a view to building a sustainable community around the ARK scheme.
Advisory Group
(...)
Technical Working Group
Test ARKs, inflections, ARK specification - IETF process
(...)
Outreach Working Group
Logo, FAQ in Spanish, Newsletter, Wiki resources and value pages
(...)
NAAN Registry Working Group
Since March 2020, the NAAN Registry Working Group has been meeting once a month to oversee the registry of institutions that have been given a Name Assigning Authority Number (NAAN).
Revamped NAAN Form
(...)
Sustainability Working Group
The Sustainability Working Group, which met from April 2019 to March 2020 and consisted of determining the most cost-effective way to deliver ARK services, has been dissolved. Any remaining action or discussion items have reverted to the Advisory Group.
Useful links
ARK Identifiers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Newsletter submission
If you have any ARK-related updates and would like to share it though the next AITO Newsletter, please fill out this form: <url>.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
ARKs in the Open - Newsletter outline
Some ideas from other communities
International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)
Structure
- Community Snapshot
- Announcements and Actions
- Community Events and Outreach
- Technical Work
- Community Groups
- Implementations
- Adoption
- Innovations and Ongoing Work Across the IIIF Community
- Recommended Reading
Submitting news items: Google Forms
Dissemination: published on a quarterly basis, on their website + IIIF-Discuss (listserv)
Example: https://iiif.io/news/2019/10/02/newsletter/
Structure: thematic (3D, OCR, Data modelling, etc.), often with small articles/interviews - always start with a “letter from the editors”
Dissemination: on a dedicated webpage (Insight), on their listserv
Submitting news items: the editors decide which topic they want to highlight. The Insights are published two to three times a year - they used to have a “proper newsletter” from 2016 to 2018.
Example: https://pro.europeana.eu/page/issue-14-3d
Template ideas for the AITO newsletter
Structure
- Snapshot
- Number of institutions on the NAAN registry / Map
- Other key metrics
- Links to important resources
- Latest news from the AITO Working Groups
- Debunking one technical aspect at a time
- Events where ARKs have been or will be presented
- Interview with an implementer/service provider/researcher/etc.
- Implementation: tools, object types, why ARKs?, issues that they have faced using ARKs, EFT, etc.
- Service provider: tools, number of customers, rationale of becoming a service provider, etc.
- Etc.
- ARKs Showcase - interesting/beautiful artifacts
- Next steps
Target audience
- Developers
- Librarians/Archivists/Curators
- CIOs
- Funders
- Researchers
- Others?
Technical vs Non-technical people - 2 different newsletters?
Or 1 newsletter with technical and less technical aspects?
Outreach helpers
https://mailchimp.com/resources/mailchimp-101/
- Templates - “Inspiration Gallery”
- Market segmentation
- A/B tests
- Tips
- Pricing - Free to Premium - https://mailchimp.com/pricing/