Old Release
This documentation relates to an old version of DSpace, version 4.x. Looking for another version? See all documentation.
This DSpace release is end-of-life and is no longer supported.
Work in progress
This page has just been created and is still work in progress
Persistent Identifier
It is good practice to user Persistent Identifier to address items in a digital repository. There are many different systems for persistent Identifiers: Handle, DOI, urn:nbn, purl and many more. It is far out of the scope of this document to discuss the differences of all these systems. For several reasons the handle system is deeply integrated in DSpace and DSpace makes intensive use of handles. With DSpace 3.0 the Identifier Service was introduced that makes it possible to use external identifier services within DSpace.
DOIs are Persistent Identifier like handles are. But as many big publishing companies uses DOIs they are quite well-known by scientists. Some journals asks for DOIs to link supplemented material whenever an article is submitted.