The ARK Identifier Scheme at Ten Years Old
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The document discusses the archival resource key (ARK) identifier scheme which aims to provide long-term access to diverse information objects, both digital and physical. It emphasizes the advantages of ARKs, including cost-effectiveness, self-sufficiency, and global resolvability, while addressing the limitations of traditional URLs. ARK identifiers separate naming from hosting and incorporate inflections for enhanced data retrieval, contributing to a more robust system for managing and accessing information over time.
The ARK Identifier Scheme at Ten Years Old
- 1. The ARK Iden+fier Scheme at Ten Years Old 7 M a y 2 0 1 2 J o h n K u n z e U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a C u r a + o n C e n t e r C a l i f o r n i a D i g i t a l L i b r a r y
- 2. California Digital Library Serving the University of California CDL supports the research lifecycle • 10 campuses • Collec+ons • 360K students, faculty, and staff • Digital Special Collec+ons • 100’s of museums, art galleries, • Discovery & Delivery observatories, marine centers, • Publishing Group botanical gardens • UC Cura+on Center (UC3) • 5 medical centers • 5 law schools • 3 Na+onal Laboratories
- 3. California Digital Library (CDL)
- 4. Today’s journey • What are ARKs? • Separa+on of concerns • Naming ≠ hos+ng • Scheme ≠ resolu+on • Syntax ≠ persistence • Inflec+ons and metadata • EZID (easy iden+fiers) and N2T (name-‐to-‐thing) • Data cita+on, passthrough
- 5. What’s an ARK iden+fier? ARK = Archival Resource Key ARKs support long-‐term access to informa+on objects ARKs iden+fy objects of any type: • digital objects – data, documents, images, sodware, ... • physical objects – books, bones, statues, ... • groups & living beings – people, animals, orchestras, ... • Intangibles – places, chemicals, diseases, terms, ...
- 6. The URL is dead, long live the URL! Fallacy #1: URLs are unreliable, so instead use this... um... well... ah ... (shhh!) “URL” Some of your best friends are URLs: hlp://dx.doi.org/10.1234/98765 hlp://hdl.handle.net/10.1234/98765 hlp://purl.org/10.1234/98765 hlp://n2t.net/ark:/101234/98765
- 7. Persistence is about service • Imagine the “perfect” golden iden+fier • Apply bankruptcy, disk crash, human error, or war, and there’s nothing that syntax, scheme, or resolver can do to prevent iden+fier breakage.
- 8. What’s an ARK iden+fier? (take 2) An ARK is a URL, with some extra rules ARK reserves / and . for what we oden assume • A/B/C means C is contained in A/B, and B in A • A.pdf, A.html, and A.docx are all variants of A Could dras+cally improve search result display • No need to lookup rela+onships
- 9. ARK inflec+ons (declina+ons) An ARK is a special URL with access to 3 things 1. An informa+on object 2. Its metadata, by appending ‘?’ inflec+on 3. A provider’s promise, by appending a ‘??’ An inflec1on changes a name ending for a purpose • Reduces the number of different names needed • Use seman+c web without hiring a programmer
- 10. ‘?’ Inflec+on returns Dublin Kernel Same machine-‐readable informa+on as before: erc:! who: National Research Council! what: The Digital Dilemma! when: 2000! where: http://books.nap.edu/html/digital%5Fdilemma! Even shorter: erc: National Research Council! | The Digital Dilemma | 2000 ! | http://books.nap.edu/html/digital%5Fdilemma! See hlp://dublincore.org/groups/kernel/ for more informa+on!
- 11. Why use ARKs? ARKs are assigned for a variety of reasons: • affordability – there are no fees to assign or use ARKs • self-‐sufficiency – can host ARKs on your own web server • portability – can move ARKs without change of iden+ty http://cdlib.org/ark:/12025/654xz321 http://rutgers.edu/ark:/12025/654xz321 http://n2t.net/ark:/12025/654xz321 • global resolvability – can host ARKs at N2T resolver • density – mixed case means CD, Cd, cD, cd are all dis+nct
- 12. Some unique advantages of ARKs • simplicity – uses only ordinary "redirects” & "get" requests • versa+lity – with "inflec+ons" (different endings), an ARK should access data, metadata, promises, and more • transparency – no iden+fier can guarantee stability, and ARK inflec+ons help users make informed judgments • visibility – syntax rules make ARKs easy to extract and to compare for containment and variant rela+onships • reserved characters: -‐ (hyphen), / (slash), . (period)
- 13. What’s an ARK iden+fier? (take 3) ARK is a collec+on of good ideas • Separates scheme syntax from resolver rules – Resolu1on is a process of mapping an id to a thing • Separates name assigning from name mapping • All schemes encouraged to use these ideas, even ordinary URLs • N2T resolver can support them for any scheme
- 14. Iden+fier schemes are highly parallel Scheme : Name Mapping Authority : Name Assigning Authority : (NMA) : : Number (NAAN) v v v |..........................|....+..................| http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.30/tqb3kh97gh8w http://hdl.handle.net/hdl:13030/tqb3kh97gh8w http://purl.org/tqb3kh97gh8w ... urn:13030:tqb3kh97gh8w http://n2t.net/ark:/13030/tqb3kh97gh8w http://OwlBike.example.org/ark:/13030/tqb3kh97gh8w |..........................|.......................|...... Branded or neutral Base identifier Suffix
- 15. Locksmith jargon: shoulder, blade, +p, bow, cover _____ slips on _____ .-' ,_,'-.. ----> .-' '-. / (o,o) / : {`"'} || : `____ / .-. -"-"- || / .-. '--^. .^--^. .^. { ( ) || { ( ) `-' `-^--^-' '--^. `-' _o || '-' ===================================} : _|<,_ || : __________________________________/ (*)/(*) / / `-._____.-' `-._____.-' |....................|...............|....|..........................|..| ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ : : : : : Cover= Bow= Shoulder .------ Blade Tip NMA Scheme+NAAN : : .-------------------' : : : : : : v v v v v v |..........................|....+.....|...|......|.| http://OwlBike.example.org/ark:/13030/tqb3kh97gh8w <---- Example Key doi:10.30/tqb3kh97gh8w with parallel hdl:13030/tqb3kh97gh8w parts in other urn:13030:tqb3kh97gh8w id schemes. |..........................|.......................|.... Name Mapping Authority Base identifier ...
- 16. ARK usage in 10 years • In 2001-‐2011 ~100 organiza+ons registered for ARKs • Registry is replicated at BnF and NLM • Some of the largest users are – The California Digital Library – The Internet Archive – Bibliothèque na+onale de France – Por+co Digital Preserva+on Service – University of California Berkeley – University of Chicago
- 17. Some other ARK registrants 12025 US Na+onal Library of Medicine 86077 Cornell Ins+tute for Social and Economic Research 26677 Library and Archives Canada 77635 Humboldt-‐Universität zu Berlin 13038 World Intellectual Property Organiza+on 78319 Google 61001 University of Chicago 28722 University of California Berkeley 64269 UK Digital Cura+on Centre 87895 Centre Informa+que Na+onal de l'Enseignement Supérieur 61903 Family Search 52327 Na+onal Library and Archives of Quebec 10261 Jüdisches Museum Berlin 71479 Spanish Na+onal Research Council 32833 Massachusels Ins+tute of Technology 81055 Bri+sh Library 80713 Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
- 18. Immersion vs landing page What do you mean by “get the data”? What inflec+ons might dis+nguish these? • Immersion – a consump+ve experience or • Landing page – a menu-‐study experience?
- 20. Vision for a “data paper” • Wrap the unfamiliar in a familiar façade • A “data paper” is minimally a cover sheet and a set of links to archived ar+facts • Cover sheet contains familiar elements: +tle, date, authors, abstract, and persistent iden+fier (DOI, ARK, etc.) • Just enough to permit basic exposure and discovery – Building a basic data cita+on – Indexing by services such as Web of Science, Google Scholar – Ins+lling confidence in the iden+fier’s stability
- 21. New distributed framework Coordina9ng Nodes Flexible, scalable, Member Nodes • retain complete metadata sustainable network • catalog ins+tu+ons diverse • subset of all data • serve local community • perform basic indexing • provide network-‐wide • provide resources for managing their data services • ensure data availability (preserva+on) • provide replica+on services
- 22. ARKs – coming soon • Community forum • Standardiza+on as an Internet RFC • New inflec+ons for landing page & immersion
- 23. N2T/EZID – coming soon • Indexing by A&I vendors • Suffix pass-‐through – Register Name -‐> target T – Resolve Name/a/b/c -‐> T/a/b/c automa+cally – Greatly reduce number of ids to manage • URNs