Are ARKs a good solution for "fan binding" identifiers?
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Rose Davidson
Jan 15, 2023, 2:37:51 PM1/15/23
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For as long as people have been creating fan works (fanfiction, fanart, etc), other people have been archiving and preserving those fan works. One form of archiving is commonly called "fan binding"; amateur bookbinding of fanfiction. Due to the nature of fandom and fanfiction, fan binding exists outside of the "traditional" publishing space; editions are produced in extremely limited quantities, and there does not currently exist an equivalent of the ISBN or LCCN for fan-bound editions. Many fan-binders produce blog posts (such as https://wiresandbooks.com/2022/12/fialleril-everything-i-have-ever-learned/) about their work, but of course these URLs are vulnerable to link-rot and cannot be deemed reliable long-term.
(Please see https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2022.2107 for more on the phenomenon of fan binding, and see https://prismatic-bell.tumblr.com/675972110095695872 for more on the utility of metadata and provenance around fan binding.)
I believe ARKs might be suitable to generate a permanent reference number for fan-bound editions. I envision providing a resolver which stores basic metadata about an edition, as well as a link to further information about the edition.
For example: https://binderyid.org/ark:/12345/b554c39 might resolve to a surrogate page on the binderyid.org domain which has metadata about the edition (fanwork title, fanwork author, fanwork creation date, edition creator, edition creation date), and a creator-provided link for more information about the edition. In the event that the "more information" link breaks, the edition creator can update the metadata; even if she does not do so, the surrogate page still provides basic information. The edition creator could include this ARK on an "about this edition" page for the benefit of future researchers.
I imagine that binderyid might be assigned a NAAN, under which shoulders could be assigned to specific edition creators; it is common for someone engaging in fan binding to operate a "bindery" or other form of imprint, serving as a sort of unofficial publishing house.
Alternatives I have considered:
1. Creating a non-ARK identifier scheme at binderyid.org: This has the advantage of simplicity, but the disadvantage of creating yet another identifier scheme.
2. Minting ARKs using a freely-available service provider: According to the this thread (https://groups.google.com/g/arks-forum/c/qmJOKjuys4k), the Internet Archive provides ARKs for texts deposited by users. In theory, I could create a surrogate metadata text, upload it to the Internet Archive, and use the minted ARK as an identifier. However, I worry that it would be too awkward to view the surrogate metadata on the Internet Archive, and that it might be difficult to keep the "more information" link up to date.
3. Uploading surrogate metadata and/or the "more information" details to a fandom archive (such as https://archiveofourown.org/): Fanbinding is unquestionably a fannish activity, and so information about specific fan-bound editions could belong on archiveofourown. However, many fics which are fan-bound are _also_ archived on archiveofourown, and I worry that it would be confusing to have two similar URLs (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345, https://archiveofourown.org/works/54321), where one identifies the work and the other identifies the fan-binding edition. Moreover, archiveofourown does not currently archive images (such as the photos and diagrams shown in the wiresandbooks blog post above), so there are severe limits on how much information about the edition could be archived this way.
Are there any other alternatives I should consider? Are ARKs a good solution for this scenario?
(Please see https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2022.2107 for more on the phenomenon of fan binding, and see https://prismatic-bell.tumblr.com/675972110095695872 for more on the utility of metadata and provenance around fan binding.)
I believe ARKs might be suitable to generate a permanent reference number for fan-bound editions. I envision providing a resolver which stores basic metadata about an edition, as well as a link to further information about the edition.
For example: https://binderyid.org/ark:/12345/b554c39 might resolve to a surrogate page on the binderyid.org domain which has metadata about the edition (fanwork title, fanwork author, fanwork creation date, edition creator, edition creation date), and a creator-provided link for more information about the edition. In the event that the "more information" link breaks, the edition creator can update the metadata; even if she does not do so, the surrogate page still provides basic information. The edition creator could include this ARK on an "about this edition" page for the benefit of future researchers.
I imagine that binderyid might be assigned a NAAN, under which shoulders could be assigned to specific edition creators; it is common for someone engaging in fan binding to operate a "bindery" or other form of imprint, serving as a sort of unofficial publishing house.
Alternatives I have considered:
1. Creating a non-ARK identifier scheme at binderyid.org: This has the advantage of simplicity, but the disadvantage of creating yet another identifier scheme.
2. Minting ARKs using a freely-available service provider: According to the this thread (https://groups.google.com/g/arks-forum/c/qmJOKjuys4k), the Internet Archive provides ARKs for texts deposited by users. In theory, I could create a surrogate metadata text, upload it to the Internet Archive, and use the minted ARK as an identifier. However, I worry that it would be too awkward to view the surrogate metadata on the Internet Archive, and that it might be difficult to keep the "more information" link up to date.
3. Uploading surrogate metadata and/or the "more information" details to a fandom archive (such as https://archiveofourown.org/): Fanbinding is unquestionably a fannish activity, and so information about specific fan-bound editions could belong on archiveofourown. However, many fics which are fan-bound are _also_ archived on archiveofourown, and I worry that it would be confusing to have two similar URLs (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345, https://archiveofourown.org/works/54321), where one identifies the work and the other identifies the fan-binding edition. Moreover, archiveofourown does not currently archive images (such as the photos and diagrams shown in the wiresandbooks blog post above), so there are severe limits on how much information about the edition could be archived this way.
Are there any other alternatives I should consider? Are ARKs a good solution for this scenario?
Donny Winston
Jan 15, 2023, 4:53:40 PM1/15/23
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> I envision providing a resolver which stores basic metadata about an edition, as well as a link to further information about the edition.
> I imagine that binderyid might be assigned a NAAN, under which shoulders could be assigned to specific edition creators
This sounds great. There are a couple of open minter+binder+resolver implementations (see https://github.com/topics/arks), including the Internet Archive's.
For some ideas on metadata schema for an identifier record, see <https://n2t.net/e/n2t_apidoc.html#identifier-metadata>. I've also found the DO-IRP model (https://www.dona.net/sites/default/files/2022-06/DO-IRPV3.0--2022-06-30.pdf) inspiring.
Best,
Donny
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Donny Winston, PhD (he/him/his)
Polyneme LLC
New York, NY
If I've emailed you, I'd love to speak with you.
Schedule a quick chat:
John Kunze
Jan 16, 2023, 7:22:39 PM1/16/23
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Hi Rose,
I enjoyed hearing about fanbinding, which I knew very little about before this. If I understand correctly, you would like to improve preservation of fanfiction by finding an archiving solution and a persistent identifier solution. I'd say that the latter is relatively easy (and ARKs would be a good match) and the former should also be easy if you don't have to build your own archive. Depending on your resources, building an archive may also not be that hard.
Minting can be seen as separate from archiving, so you could match different minting solutions with different archiving solutions. For example, have you asked if archiveofourown would be interested in adding ARKs to their works? OTOH, if you deposit in the IA (and I'd recommend using their API and "ia" command line tool for efficiency), you get an ARK as a side-effect. It may be that you could find interest within the IA (eg, a big fan of fanfiction who works there) and could help with a custom strategy. Is creating your own "journal" with the open OJS software a possibility (there's a good ARK plugin for OJS)?
-John
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Rose Davidson
Jan 16, 2023, 8:01:28 PM1/16/23
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My efforts are not directly aimed at the preservation of fanfiction, but rather the preservation of metadata about specific instances of fanbinding.
Essentially I want a means to mint an identifier for a specific "edition", which is what I currently define to be "the finished product of a particular effort by a fanbinder to print and bind a fanfiction". (The same fanbinder might later bind a different edition of the same fic, perhaps using different techniques, or notably different materials.)
Further, I want a means to resolve the identifier assigned to an edition to a collection of metadata about the edition. I imagine some of this metadata would be fixed at creation, while other kinds might be added to at a later date.
Here are two examples of the sort of metadata I am talking about. (The metadata keys and specific metadata syntax were invented off-the-cuff for the example purposes.)
workTitle: "everything I have ever learned"
workAuthor: "fialleril" <https://fialleril.tumblr.com/>
workFandom: "Star Wars Original Trilogy"
workLink: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538078
workDate: 2019-06-04
workDate: 2019-04-20
bindingCreator: "Rose Davidson" <https://wiresandbooks.com/>
bindingBindery: "Straylight Press"
bindingDate: 2022-10-26
additionalDetails: https://wiresandbooks.com/2022/12/fialleril-everything-i-have-ever-learned/
workTitle: "Royal Flush"
workAuthor: "astolat" <https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat>
workFandom: "Game of Thrones (TV)"
workLink: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39240864
workDate: 2022-06-08
bindingCreator: "Desmothene"
bindingBindery: "Celestial Sphere Press"
bindingDate: 2023-10-13
additionalDetails: https://celestial-sphere-press.tumblr.com/post/706372398747975680/fanbinding-royal-flush-by-astolat
I imagine that associating an ARK with a specific edition, and including the ARK in the front or back matter of that edition, will make it easier for a future interested person to retrieve this kind of metadata.
I don't believe that a "journal" is the right approach here; I am not producing research. I suppose what I would be doing here is cataloging and preserving bibiographic data. I am not very clear on what part of this data, if any, is suitable for depositing in the IA.
I hope that makes my question a little more clear.
Essentially I want a means to mint an identifier for a specific "edition", which is what I currently define to be "the finished product of a particular effort by a fanbinder to print and bind a fanfiction". (The same fanbinder might later bind a different edition of the same fic, perhaps using different techniques, or notably different materials.)
Further, I want a means to resolve the identifier assigned to an edition to a collection of metadata about the edition. I imagine some of this metadata would be fixed at creation, while other kinds might be added to at a later date.
Here are two examples of the sort of metadata I am talking about. (The metadata keys and specific metadata syntax were invented off-the-cuff for the example purposes.)
workTitle: "everything I have ever learned"
workAuthor: "fialleril" <https://fialleril.tumblr.com/>
workFandom: "Star Wars Original Trilogy"
workLink: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538078
workDate: 2019-06-04
workDate: 2019-04-20
bindingCreator: "Rose Davidson" <https://wiresandbooks.com/>
bindingBindery: "Straylight Press"
bindingDate: 2022-10-26
additionalDetails: https://wiresandbooks.com/2022/12/fialleril-everything-i-have-ever-learned/
workTitle: "Royal Flush"
workAuthor: "astolat" <https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat>
workFandom: "Game of Thrones (TV)"
workLink: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39240864
workDate: 2022-06-08
bindingCreator: "Desmothene"
bindingBindery: "Celestial Sphere Press"
bindingDate: 2023-10-13
additionalDetails: https://celestial-sphere-press.tumblr.com/post/706372398747975680/fanbinding-royal-flush-by-astolat
I imagine that associating an ARK with a specific edition, and including the ARK in the front or back matter of that edition, will make it easier for a future interested person to retrieve this kind of metadata.
I don't believe that a "journal" is the right approach here; I am not producing research. I suppose what I would be doing here is cataloging and preserving bibiographic data. I am not very clear on what part of this data, if any, is suitable for depositing in the IA.
I hope that makes my question a little more clear.
John Kunze
Jan 20, 2023, 3:26:42 PM1/20/23
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Right. So in your use case, the primary object, call it M, to be identified is a metadata record that, itself, references a work of fanfiction, call it W.
If I understand correctly, your immediate goal is to create ARKs for things like M, but not for things like W. As long as you have a preservation plan for things like M, I don't see a problem.
Separately, do you know if the providers of fanfiction content (things like W) would be interested in assigning ARKs to them?
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Rose Davidson
Jan 20, 2023, 6:15:06 PM1/20/23
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Close, but I would make a few clarifications!
There is some fanfiction work W. (W may actually be a single work, or it may be a collection of short stories, or a series of novellas, etc.) There exists at least one printed (and therefore physical) copy of W. Where multiple physical copies were created by substantially the same people, at substantially the same time, with substantially the same methods and materials, I consider them to comprise an "edition", E. (If a work is popular, many people may make editions of it. After an edition-creator gains new skills, they may create a new edition of a work W for which they previously made an edition. So there exists a many-to-many relationship between works and printed editions.)
I want to achieve three things:
1. Assign an identifier (such as an ARK) to an edition E; that is, one or more related physical objects.
2. Preserve metadata about the creation and contents of an edition.
3. Establish a method to look up the metadata based on the edition's identifier.
I realize this may be a very technical quibble, but the ARKs overview explicitly says they can apply to physical objects. There is almost always _some_ metadata about a resource identified by an ARK, but that metadata is not usually considered to be the resource _itself_, right?
Regarding your second question, I think that, broadly speaking, fanfiction authors (creators of W) would probably NOT be interested in assigning ARKs to works. (A handful of authors may find it interesting, but I expect that most will be satisfied with using archive site URLs as identifiers, and it would be difficult to popularize the notion of using ARKs for fanfic works.) Perhaps fandom historians/librarians would want to use identifiers such as ARKs for works which have no reliable archive site URL, but I am not familiar enough with that problem space to comment in detail.
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There is some fanfiction work W. (W may actually be a single work, or it may be a collection of short stories, or a series of novellas, etc.) There exists at least one printed (and therefore physical) copy of W. Where multiple physical copies were created by substantially the same people, at substantially the same time, with substantially the same methods and materials, I consider them to comprise an "edition", E. (If a work is popular, many people may make editions of it. After an edition-creator gains new skills, they may create a new edition of a work W for which they previously made an edition. So there exists a many-to-many relationship between works and printed editions.)
I want to achieve three things:
1. Assign an identifier (such as an ARK) to an edition E; that is, one or more related physical objects.
2. Preserve metadata about the creation and contents of an edition.
3. Establish a method to look up the metadata based on the edition's identifier.
I realize this may be a very technical quibble, but the ARKs overview explicitly says they can apply to physical objects. There is almost always _some_ metadata about a resource identified by an ARK, but that metadata is not usually considered to be the resource _itself_, right?
Regarding your second question, I think that, broadly speaking, fanfiction authors (creators of W) would probably NOT be interested in assigning ARKs to works. (A handful of authors may find it interesting, but I expect that most will be satisfied with using archive site URLs as identifiers, and it would be difficult to popularize the notion of using ARKs for fanfic works.) Perhaps fandom historians/librarians would want to use identifiers such as ARKs for works which have no reliable archive site URL, but I am not familiar enough with that problem space to comment in detail.
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