This page details how non-technical end users may interact with our service after initial setup by an IT professional. 

Managing PIDs

Management of PIDS includes creating (often called minting) as well as updating and retiring (often called tombstoning) PIDs.

Collection management Software

Many end users, especially heritage institutions, never directly interact with our service software. Instead, an IT professional will have integrated our PID service with a collection management solution (e.g. Atlantis through DEVENTit). Their user interface will help you create a PID for every object in your collection and fill in the appropriate metadata. You can then also update the metadata as needed directly inside your collection management solution.

However everyone can still always opt to resolve your PIDs from any web browser by typing in the handle resolver and the PID's prefix and suffix. 

API

End users with a bit more technical knowledge may wish to mint, manage and resolve our PIDs by writing their own scripts in the language of their choice through our API. You can find more details about how to do so here, with sample code available for bash, PHP, Python, and Windows Command. 

GUI

There is also a web-based GUI available for administering PIDs. An example of the admin interface GUI can be found at https://epic-pid.storage.surfsara.nl:8003/admin/. The GUI web address is dependant on the instance that your prefix is running.  Instructions on how to authenticate yourself as well as mint and manage PIDs can be found here.

Custom Solutions

Your institution may have built their own infrastructure that integrates with our service API. For details about how to use that, please contact your local administrators.

We can also provide consultation services for integrating our PID service into your infrastructures and developing appropriate metadata schemas.  

Resolving PIDs

Unless specifically setup to be closed, all handles can be resolved without providing credentials by anyone with a web browser. This can be done by simply typing in the handle resolver and the PID's prefix and suffix. 

Example from the City Archive Rotterdam using our service integrated with collection management software for a sticker from the Corona collection:

handle resolver: https://hdl.handle.net
prefix: 21.12133
suffix: 4EBC9BF1121D4C24948EBB849762BFDE

https://hdl.handle.net/21.12133/4EBC9BF1121D4C24948EBB849762BFDE

Alternatively, you can also resolve a handle without credentials using a variety of programming languages. Details and example code can be found in the documentation section PIDs: Using the service.