ARK Alliance

Home of the Archival Resource Key (ARK)

Community

The ARK Alliance community comprises institutions and people who use or assign ARK identifiers as well as those interested in promoting ARKs and sustaining the open ARK infrastructure, which consists of standards, best practices, the N2T.net resolver, and the registry of ARK organizations. There is also an ARK Community Code of Conduct.

Global distribution of over 1000 ARK organizations.

The ARK Alliance emerged from a collaboration between the California Digital Library and DuraSpace/LYRASIS. Launched in 2018, it has gained the support of 43 institutions. Since 2021 the ARK Alliance has been a member of the NDSA, an international consortium committed to the long-term preservation of digital information.

How to get involved

  1. Join a discussion group (in English) or 🇫🇷 liste de discussion (francophone)
  2. Follow the ARK Alliance on twitter @arks_org
  3. Follow us on mastodon @arks_org@fosstodon.org
  4. Read the ARK Alliance blog
  5. Sign up for our newsletter
  6. Submit a community news item or blog post using this online form
  7. Tell us about yourself by filling out a 5-minute ARK survey (in English) or 🇫🇷 une enquête ARK (version française)
  8. Tell us about your interest in helping with the work of the ARK Alliance
  9. Contact us about joining a working group: Outreach, Registry, Technical, Advisory

Who is creating ARKs

Since 2001 over 1000 organizations across the world registered to assign ARKs. The registry includes national and university libraries and archives, art museums, natural history museums, publishers, data centers, government agencies, vendors, and research labs. To register your organization, fill out this online request form.

chart of growth of ARK-assigning organizations since 2001

What ARKs are being assigned to (February 2023):

We continue to receive expressions of interest and have attracted support from the following 43 institutions on 4 continents: