ARK Alliance

Home of the Archival Resource Key (ARK)

About ARKs

Did you know…

Archival Resource Key (ARK) identifiers are URLs that support long-term access to information. Learn below what you need to know about ARKs, whether you’re planning how your system or collection will use them, or you’re a developer building ARK tools.

ARK Anatomy

  https://example.org/ark:/12345/x54xz321/s3/f8.05v.tiff
  \_________________/ \__/ \___/ \______/\____/\_______/
              |        |     |      |      |       |
              |  ARK Label   |      | Sub-parts  Variants
              |              |      |
Name Mapping Authority (NMA) |    Assigned Name
                             |
              Name Assigning Authority Number (NAAN)

A peek at ARK anatomy. You can spot an ARK by its internal label.

Please note all ARK documentation has not yet been transferred to this site. This includes important ARK FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) in English, French, and Spanish:

ARK overview

Why ARKs?

ARK NAANs and systems

ARK features

Comparing ARKs, DOIs and other identifier systems

Getting started: what to plan for as you implement ARKs

The following in-depth information will be useful if you’re extending your own local repository or system with Noid software to support ARKs, or if you’re developing an ARK system.

General identifier concepts and conventions

Running minters and resolvers

More about the N2T global resolver

ARK namespaces and sub-namespaces

More about ARK shoulders

Testing ARKs with N2T

ARK implementation best practices