The crisis of dead hyperlinks and broken URLs in the mid 90s spawned at least three well known schemes for persistent identification of digital resources: PURLs, URNs and Handles. Common to these schemes was adding, on top of DNS, a new layer of indirection (i.e. properly maintained identities being resolved into URLs).

In 2001, John A. Kunze presented a new approach to persistent idenfication; the ARK. Kunze does a good job in laying out the problems of previous approaches. "Persistence" argues Kunze, "is purely a matter of service." While Kunze argues well against the use of earlier identifier schemes, the ARK remain caught up in the same problems it advices against. Where the earlier failed in trying to apply the same approach as DNS, but outside of DNS, the ARK fails in not understanding that what worked beautifully in DNS actually works beautifully in DNS. If DNS is described as a pair of pants, ARK is at best a pair of suspenders.

Engaging with DNS on both a political and technical level is the best way for digital libraries and archives to address our own needs for persistent actionable identification, while still being part of a bigger world.

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

General Track, "Repository Rants" 24x7 Presentations

The session was recorded and is <a href="https://connect.funet.fi/p9fxr52wxiv/">available for watching</a> (this presentation starts at 0:55:21).