Persistent Identifiers for Digital Cultural Heritage
Jonathan Clark
International DOI Foundation
Rembrandltlaan 121231 AC Loosdrecht
The Netherlands+31654733572
jonathanmtclark@gmail.com

Remco van Veenendaal
Marcel Ras

Juha Hakala

National Archives
P.O. box 90520
2509 LM The Hague, Netherlands+31629451951 / +31703140180
remco.van.veenendaal@nationaalarchief.nl
marcel.ras@kb.nl

ABSTRACTThis is an introductory level tutorial. The goals of the tutorial
are: to explain what persistent identifiers are and why they are
so important and what the criteria are for trustworthy identifiersystems; to present the latest version of a decision tree tool thathelps determine which system is the most appropriate for aparticular set of needs; and to discuss the current features ofPIDs and the development of future properties.

Keywords
Persistent Identifiers; Handle System; DOI; ARK; URN;
URN:NBN; PURL.

1. INTRODUCTION
Over the past years, a growing number of collections belonging
to archives, libraries, media, museums, and research institutes
have being digitized and made available online. These areexciting times for ALM institutions. On the one hand, theyrealize that, in the information society, their collections aregoldmines, as “data is the new gold” [1]On the other hand, unfortunately most heritage institutions do
not yet meet the basic preconditions for long-term availabilityof their collections. Apart from the problems of digitalpreservation the digital objects often have no long lasting fixedreference. URL’s and web addresses change. For instance,some digital objects that were referenced in Europeana andother portals can no longer be found. References in scientificarticles can have a very short life span, which is damaging for
scholarly research, as is shown in the well-known article ofHerbert van de Sompel and others [2].
Thus, in this digital world there is a need to unambiguously
determine what a resource is and where it can be found in a waythat is persistent over time. However, the identifiers themselves
are simply strings of numbers and not inherently persistent.
What make them persistent are the policies, organization andagreements that sit behind these numbers.

National Library, The Netherlands Institute for Sound andVision, the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency, the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National
Archive of the Netherlands and the DEN Foundation, and a
growing number of associations and individuals both within andoutside the heritage sector.
Meanwhile, other institutions such as the British Film Institute,
the National Diet Library of Japan and the European Union are
moving forward with interesting projects to assign persistentidentifiers to their archives.

2. TOPICS
The tutorial on persistent identifiers for digital cultural heritage
will consist of three parts
1.

2.

3.

Introduction: what are persistent identifiers (PI) andwhy are they important?

The NDE is a partnership established as an initiative of theMinistry of Education, Culture and Science. The members ofthe NDE are large, national institutions that strive toprofessionally preserve and manage digital data, e.g. thea.

Knowing what’s what and who’s whob.

The importance of Social Infrastructurec.

Recommendations of the Research Data
Alliance (RDA) for reliable & trustworthy
PIs [6]d.

Review of current identifier systems

The NDE decision tree for PIsa.

A tool in form of an online questionnairethat guides cultural heritage organizations
through the process of selecting a particular
type of Persistent Identifier (Handle, DOIor NBN:URN) [7]b.

Discuss the applicability of the decision tree
outside the Netherlands

Persistent Identifiers: current features and future
properties

Many different systems have emerged over the years, somemore robust than others. What is the difference between them
all and how to choose between the various options available?
What are the criteria to judge whether a PI system can betrusted or not? [3]Finally, of course a choice must be made for a PI system thatmeets the long-term needs of the ALM institution. In 2015, theDutch Digital Heritage Network (NDE) [4] started a two-year
work program to co-ordinate existing initiatives in order toimprove the (long-term) accessibility of the Dutch digital
heritage for a wide range of users, anytime, anyplace. [5]National Library of Finland
Fabianinkatu 35
00170 Helsinki
Finland+358 50 382 7678
juha.hakala@helsinki.fia.

Resolutionb.

Future developments of PIDs

SCOPE
The intention is that this tutorial be “PI-agnostic”; that is, any
persistent identifier (Handle [8], DOI [9], ARK [10],
URN:NBN [11], URN [12] and PURL [13]) will be discussed.

3. INTENDED AUDIENCE
Anyone interested in learning more about persistent identifiers
for digital information. This tutorial has a strong practitioner
focus and will be especially interesting for those working withDigital Archives and Digital Collections. This tutorial also actsas an introduction and level set for the Workshop on Smart
Persistent Identifiers. Participants may be interested to readsome background articles [14] [15] [16] [17]4. EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Participants will leave this tutorial with a clear understanding ofwhat persistent identifiers are and why they are important. They
will have an overview of the different identifier systems in use
today and have ample opportunity to answer their questions.

5. SPEAKERS
The tutorial speakers will be Jonathan Clark, Managing Agentfor the DOI Foundation, Remco van Veenendaal of the Dutch
National Archives, Marcel Ras of the National Coalition for
Digital Preservation and and Juha Hakala of the National
Library of Finland.

6. REFERENCES[1] “Data is the new gold”. Is the title of a speech from Neelie
Kroes as Vice-President of the European Commission
responsible for the Digital Agenda. Opening Remarks on aConference on Open Data Strategy in Brussels, 12thDecember 2011. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressrelease_SPEECH-11-872_en.htm?locale=en[2] Herbert van de Sompel et al, Scholarly Context Not
Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot,
Plos One, December 26, 2014.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115253[3] iPRES 2012, ‘Interoperability Framework for Persistent
Identifier systems’, iPRES 2012, Toronto, urn:nbn:it:frd9491 https://ipres.ischool.utoronto.ca/sites/ipres.ischool.ut
oronto.ca/files/iPres%202012%20Conference%20Proceedi
ngs%20Final.pdf; LIBER 43 Annual conference,“Implementing an Interoperability Framework for
Persistent Identifier systems” in Riga, Latvia, on 2-5 July
2014, ISBN 978-9984-850-23-8[4] The Digital Heritage Network in the Netherlands
http://www.ncdd.nl/en/ncdd-projects/digital-heritagenetwork/[5] Persistent Identifier project information / National
Coalition for Digital Preservation
http://www.ncdd.nl/en/ncdd-projects/digital-heritagenetwork/project-persistent-identifiers/[6] Research Data Alliance Recommendations in the field ofPersistent Identifiers for digital objects
https://rd-alliance.org/group/data-fabric-ig/wiki/persistentidentifier-bundle.html[7] Persistent Identifier decision tree:
http://www.ncdd.nl/en/pid[8] Handle.Net https://www.handle.net[9] The DOI® System http://www.doi.org[10] ARK (Archival Resource Key) Identifiers
https://confluence.ucop.edu/display/Curation/ARK[11] Using National Bibliography Numbers as Uniform
Resource Names, RFC 3188, J. Hakala
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3188[12] Uniform Resource Names,
https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/urnbis/charter/[13] Persistent URLs http://www.purlz.org andhttps://purl.oclc.org/docs/index.html[14] Implementing Persistent Identifiers: Overview of concepts,
guidelines and recommendations, Hans-Werner Hilse andJochen Kothe, 2006
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:7-isbn-90-6984508-3-8[15] Persistent identifiers in the Digital Preservation Handbook,
Digital Preservation Coalition,
http://handbook.dpconline.org/technical-solutions-andtools/persistent-identifiers[16] Persistent Identifiers (PIDs): recommendations forinstitutions, ATHENA WP3 Working Group, April 2011
http://www.athenaeurope.org/getFile.php?id=779[17] Introduction to persistent identifiers, The THOR Project
Knowledge Hub
https://project-thor.readme.io/docs/introduction-topersistent-identifiers