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ARKs in the Open – Project Update #1

February 28, 2018 Author: Joan StarrCategories: Tags:

As announced last week, the California Digital Library (CDL) and DuraSpace are collaborating to build an open, international community around Archival Resource Keys (ARKs) and their use as persistent identifiers in the open scholarly ecosystem. We’re calling the project ARKs in the Open.

Since the announcement, we’ve received expressions of interest from two national libraries, three universities and a non-profit, all endorsing the project and wanting to be involved. We’re heartened by the support and excited to engage with these and many other stakeholders over the coming months.

In addition, project members are preparing for three important engagement opportunities in March and April 2018. We hope to see you at one of the following events:

  1. The ARK Identifier Summit and Experts Day at the National Library of France, March 21-22, 2018
  2. The DuraSpace Summit (members-only), at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, April 10-11, 2018
  3. CNI Spring 2018 Membership Meeting  at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, April 12-13, 2018

These events will serve as terrific opportunities to hear from stakeholders in the ARK community and kick off a few initiatives, including:

  • Introducing the ARKs in the Open project and objectives,
  • Preparing to submit the ARK specification as an IETF Informational RFC,
  • Tracking the number of minted ARKs world-wide,
  • Developing an engagement survey to gauge the priorities and challenges of ARK users,
  • Evaluating models for governance and community management, as well as,
  • Networking with stakeholders in the wider scholarly ecosystem.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in this project, please sign up for the ARK mailing list, http://bit.ly/2o7aNew or visit our wiki. To express interest in the ARKs in the Open project, please fill out this form, http://bit.ly/2C4fU8f.