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ARK (Archival Resource Key) identifiers are widely used for objects and abstractions related to scientific and scholarly heritage. ARKs were developed at the California Digital Library (CDL) especially, but not exclusively, for the library, archive and museum community. Their built-in flexibility and ease-of-use has proven popular with researchers and scholars across all academic disciplines, as well as government, commercial and nonprofit sectors. Indeed, over 550 institutions across the world have registered to use ARKs, conservatively estimated to number 175 million.

We (CDL) are launching CDL and DuraSpace launched this pilot project as a first step toward ensuring the ongoing health and development of the ARK infrastructure. By “ARK infrastructure,” we mean open source software tools and systems, the ARK specification, and production-grade resolver services for N2T.net (Name-to-Thing, a generic resolver for over 600 identifier types and also the global ARK resolver). ARKs represent the only major persistent identifier scheme that is truly open, decentralized, non-siloed, and non-paywalled. Community ownership of ARK identifier assets this infrastructure has been under discussion for over a decade, and the project makes a start by establishing an active ARK community group with the aims of

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CDL plans to be a core member of the ARK community and invites anyone with an interest in promoting long-term access to information objects to join us.

How to Get Involved

• Talk with us (and each other)

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• via the ARKs forum/mailing list
• Fill out an Expression of Interest form

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• Give us feedback on our Project Vision
• Learn more about ARKs

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Timeline

Advisory Group

Short Term - what we're working on now

• Convening advisory group
• Spinning up Populating the working groups for : 1) technical, 2) outreach, and 3) sustainability
• Reviewing and iterating on our pitch
• Defining a governance model
• Defining a financial model

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• Develop procedures for shared maintenance of the organizational registry and the resolver

Technical Working Group

Short Term

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• Reviewing an ARK community survey draft created by Bibliothèque nationale de FranceConsult with the wider ARK community
• Clearly articulating how ARKs can be used, why they are essential (the “value proposition”), and implementing a plan to promote their adoption and use
• Developing a process to gather requirements, priorities, and models for shared community and infrastructure management

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Sustainability Working Group

Short term

• Developing a framework to fund prioritiesDetermining the most cost-effective way to deliver ARK services that provide value to the community while keeping the required contribution from the community affordable

Longer term

• Pursuing sustainability with members of our communityConsulting with the community to pursue long-term organizational and financial stability

Aspirational items - we imagine ourselves working on these!

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