Ethan, 

As Mark mentioned we have implemented the ARK inflections of ? and ?? with our systems.

I remember the single ? being a bit of a problem to implement in our system stack (Apache/mod_python/Django) and from what I can tell isn't possible with (Apache/mod_wsgi/Django) at all.

The ?? inflection wasn't really a problem for us on either of the systems. 

From conversations I've had with implementors of ARK,  the issues around supporting the ? and ?? inflections don't seem to be related to the frameworks issues as other issues like commitment to identifiers, the fact that ARKs are being used in a redirection based system like Handles, or the challenges of accessing the item metadata for items elsewhere in their system. 

I think having a standard set of request parameters or other url conventions could be beneficial to the implementation of these features by others. 

Mark
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 8:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Functional Archival Resource Keys

This brief exchange on Twitter seems relevant:

https://twitter.com/abrennr/status/296948733147508737

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Mark A. Matienzo <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hi Ethan,
>
> I'm hoping Mark Phillips or one of his colleagues from UNT will respond,
> but they have implemented ARK inflections. For example, compare:
>
> http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth5828/
> http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth5828/?
> http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth5828/??
>
> In particular, the challenges posed by inflections are described in this
> DC2014 paper [0] by Sébastien Peyrard and Jean-Philippe Tramoni from the
> BNF and John A. Kunze from CDL.
>
> [0] http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/pubs/article/view/3704/1927
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
> --
> Mark A. Matienzo <[log in to unmask]>
> Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America
>
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 2:36 PM, Ethan Gruber <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I was recently reading the wikipedia article for Archival Resource Keys
> > (ARKs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Resource_Key), and there
> was
> > a
> > bit of functionality that a resource is supposed to deliver that we don't
> > in our system, nor do any other systems that I've seen that implement ARK
> > URIs.
> >
> > From the article:
> >
> > "An ARK contains the label *ark:* after the URL's hostname, which sets
> the
> > expectation that, when submitted to a web browser, the URL terminated by
> > '?' returns a brief metadata record, and the URL terminated by '??'
> returns
> > metadata that includes a commitment statement from the current service
> > provider."
> >
> > Looking at the official documentation (
> > https://confluence.ucop.edu/display/Curation/ARK), they provided an
> > example
> > of http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf5p30086k? which is supposed to
> return
> > something called an Electronic Resource Citation, but it doesn't work.
> > Probably because, and correct me if I'm wrong, using question marks in a
> > URL in this way doesn't really work in HTTP.
> >
> > So, has anyone successfully implemented this? Is it even worth it? I'm
> not
> > sure I can even implement this in my own architecture.
> >
> > Maybe it would be better to recommend a standard set of request
> parameters
> > that actually work in REST?
> >
> > Ethan
> >
>



--
Tod Robbins
Digital Asset Manager, MLIS
todrobbins.com | @todrobbins <http://www.twitter.com/#!/todrobbins>