PIDfest 26

How ARKs quietly grew to 15 billion PIDs at 1800 institutions
2026-10-28 , LUMC01

ARK (Archival Resource Key) identifiers are decentralized, non-paywalled PIDs.
Not everyone knows that ARKs (like DOIs, Handles, URNs, and PURLs) were
introduced 25 years ago for research and scholarship, and now appear in the
Data Citation Index, Wikipedia, ORCiD.org profiles, etc.


In this session, learn how your institution can begin creating ARKs in 48
hours. ARK metadata is very flexible -- from none to anything; for example,
many return metadata using the DataCite profile. Learn how there is no
registration requirement for individual ARKs and how they mesh perfectly with
the IIIF images. If yours is a mature institution that already has permalinks,
you will find out how you can implement ARKs with just one line in a server
configuration file.

ARK implementers include 13 national libraries, 215 universities, 254 archives,
144 museums, 124 journals, and 59 scientific centers. Adoption is accelerating
in under-resourced institutions from the global South.