What are ARKs?
ARKs are high-functioning identifiers that give you access to things and to descriptions of those things. ARKs are especially good at being persistent identifiers.
What's an identifier?
On the internet an identifier is usually part of a URL, or web address. In these examples
https://n2t.net/ark:/88435/hq37vq534
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449691v/f29/
or http://
and can be "clicked on" or entered into a web browser to give you