RDA Recommendation on PID Kernel Information

Global middleware infrastructure for programmatic data identification, discovery, and use is as necessary today as was computer addressing to the establishment of the Internet. While such infrastructure is emerging within sub-ecosystems such as the DOI ecosystem of services purposed for data and literature objects (i.e., DataCite, CHORUS, CrossRef), in general the layers of abstraction that have made the Internet so easy to build on is lacking for data especially for computer (machine) automated services.
The PID Kernel Information recommendation defines motivation and guiding principles for injecting a tiny amount of carefully selected metadata into a Persistent ID (PID) record. This carefully chosen and placed information will stimulate development of third-party Internet-scale services that make smart decisions for the anticipated billions of PIDs in existence in the future; decisions that can be made purely with localized knowledge held in the PID record.
The information contained in a PID record is represented by a PID Kernel Information profile which must be publicly and globally available. For PID Kernel Information to be effective in stimulating an ecosystem of data services, the number of different profiles of PID Kernel Information must be small and their content stable. The recommendation includes a draft profile with illustrating examples and cases for adoption in practice.