National Library of Finland (NLF) has recognized for some time the increasing need to enhance the distribution of digitized collections as data for researchers. Since 2023, NLF has focused on developing the accessibility, usability, and visibility of the NLF’s data for researchers by making the library’s vast collections and their metadata systematically manageable, easily discoverable, and clearly referenceable.

The internal development project at the NLF aimed to address these issues by creating service solutions that would support researchers to utilize digital collections. The solution included producing individual metadata records for digitized materials in library databases and streamlined path to information, where content is easily accessible, usable, and referenceable.

A key achievement of the project was the development of a new metadata workflow that centralized data generated from digitization projects into unified collection-level metadata records. These records are acting as an entry point, allowing researchers to access detailed descriptions of specific digitized collections and their contents. Furthermore, curating all digitized content into thematically organized collections has provided a layer of contextual information to resources that have previously been accessible only as individual digitized items. This approach provided a clear, consistent structure for managing metadata and ensured that individual digitized items were linked to their corresponding collection-level metadata records. By adhering to cataloging standards, the project established accurate and comprehensive description practices that facilitated better resource discovery and metadata reuse across platforms such as library databases, digital repositories and third-party services.

Collection-level metadata records act also as a gateway for researchers to download their desired datasets directly from the National Library’s digital repository, eliminating the need for a separate service platform. This integration allows all datasets to be managed and accessed directly through the library’s catalog, streamlining the process for researchers. By consolidating data access within the catalog, the project has simplified workflows and ensured that the library’s resources are more readily available for research purposes.

The creation of collection-level metadata contributed significantly to unifying NLF’s services and making them more user-friendly. By establishing long-term plans for data catalog management and service development, the project positioned the National Library as a leader in providing comprehensive cultural data resources for researchers.

The project was successful in making the library’s digitized collections more accessible, facilitating new opportunities for researchers to explore and utilize cultural heritage data. The project transformed the library’s collections into actively accessible and analyzable resources for research, with a particular focus on developing collection-level metadata records to improve discovery and usability significantly.

The NFDI4Objects consortium aims to provide sustainable, interoperable, and FAIR access to research data on material and digital objects from the disciplines of archaeology, monument preservation, conservation sciences, art history, museums, collections, and government agencies. Against the backdrop of a highly heterogeneous data landscape, the consortium's research data management strategy focuses in particular on the (further) development of metadata standards, ontologies, terminologies, FAIRification services, and a knowledge graph-based infrastructure that supports the entire data lifecycle (Bibby et al. 2023).

The concept of object biography forms a central basis on which the consortium is structurally oriented. While the data life cycle (data creation, data processing, data analysis, data publication, data archiving) is a common principle in research data management, the object biography lays the foundation for a new understanding of the creation and representation of collection data. It links historical, archaeological, scientific, and museum perspectives and provides a structure in which the object is understood as a dynamic hub of events, actors, places, and meanings (Gerber, Görz, Wagner 2025).

A central focus is on harmonizing existing international standards such as CIDOC CRM and LIDO, which are being further developed as application profiles and domain-specific extensions. In areas where established standards are insufficient or do not even exist, supplementary ontologies, domain-specific minimal data sets, and controlled vocabularies, are being created to map different data models. Community clusters, temporary working groups, and use-case-driven development processes are used to connect the community in order to jointly develop the foundations for interoperable data exchange (NFDI4Objects 2025).

The N4O Objects Core Metadata Profile (OCMDP), which is currently under development, is one result of this work. It enables connection to the National Research Data Infrastructure's cross-domain metadata profiles, making the consortium's data available in other subject areas as well, and serves as the basis for RDF-based exchange formats and knowledge graph integrations. The Material Heritage Crosswalk Ontology (MaCHeCO) is developed to map domain ontologies to CIDOC CRM to make the data compliant for the consortium’s knowledge graph (Thiery, Gerber, Fricke 2025).

The consortium views the implementation of the FAIR principles as an ongoing process that encompasses technical, organizational, and legal dimensions. NFDI4Objects responds to different requirements for openness, data protection, and access restrictions, for example in the context of monument data or sensitive collection information, according to the guiding principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” (Baars, Schäfer, Gerber 2025). In addition to FAIR, CARE principles are taken into account, especially when dealing with sensitive data and cultural heritage.

The technical backbone of the consortium is the NFDI4Objects Knowledge Graph, which acts as a central access point for distributed metadata and enables the semantic linking of heterogeneous data sources (Voß, Heers 2025). Existing and newly developed services are connected via standardized interfaces and workflows, with a federated, decentralized architecture promoting digital sovereignty, resilience, and sustainability. Organizationally, the service portfolio is continuously developed through monitoring, community feedback, and evaluation, and is gradually integrated into the institutional service portfolios of the partners (NFDI4Objects 2025).

Processes of evaluating the societal impact of research infrastructures (RIs) often reproduce what Amartya Sen (Equality of What?, 1980) identified as a “category error”: mistaking the means of for its ends. In the Digital Humanities, this manifests in an emphasis on quantifiable metrics – data volume, code repositories, user statistics – as if access to digital resources automatically translated into capability, understanding, or empowerment. Yet access without usable meaning does not constitute impact. To move beyond this resource-centric view, we must conceptualise infrastructures not only as technical assemblages but as enablers of human agency.

This paper develops such a conceptual shift by adopting Ingrid Robeyns’ Modular View of the Capability Approach (Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017) as a framework for analysing research infrastructures. Robeyns articulates a clear distinction between resources and functionings – that is, between what individuals have access to and what they can actually do or be as a result. Between these poles lie conversion factors: personal, social, and environmental conditions that determine whether resources yield valued outcomes. Within the Digital Humanities, infrastructures can be understood as precisely such conversion factors. Their role is not limited to storing or processing data but extends to creating the epistemic and institutional conditions that allow diverse users to transform data into knowledge.

This reconceptualisation helps address a central challenge identified by Edmond and Lehmann (“Digital humanities, knowledge complexity, and the five ‘aporias’ of digital research”, 2021): the “aporia” between processability (the machine’s need for standardised, decontextualised inputs) and context (the humanist’s commitment to interpretive depth and situated meaning). Digital infrastructures are often caught between these two imperatives, flattening complexity in the name of interoperability while aspiring to support nuanced cultural analysis. When approached through Robeyns’ lens, an infrastructure’s value no longer depends on technical efficiency alone but on its capacity to mediate this aporia – to convert raw, processable data into conditions for “participatory sense-making” (Edmond, Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research, 2020).

Treating infrastructures as conversion factors shifts evaluative focus from quantities to capabilities. What matters is not merely how much data are opened or processed, but whether infrastructures expand the ability of communities – scholars, heritage professionals, and citizens – to engage critically with cultural materials and co-construct interpretations of the past. Such a perspective reframes impact as a function of epistemic inclusion: infrastructures succeed when they bridge between technical processability and social intelligibility, between data availability and interpretive agency.

By integrating Robeyns’ modular framework with Digital Humanities debates on infrastructural power and epistemic mediation, this paper offers DARIAH a theoretical vocabulary for rethinking impact. It positions infrastructure-as-conversion-factor as a conceptual tool for evaluating not only what infrastructures make possible technically, but what they make achievable socially. Doing so redefines the societal value of research infrastructures as the extent to which they transform access into capability, and data into collective understanding.

In recent decades, our collective memory has been digitised by institutions, citizens, and associations. This digitisation is considered key to transforming cultural heritage into new knowledge resources. Once the digital heritage is made visible and searchable, culture truly becomes usable. Large sets of data, which are compatible and open for new services and knowledge sharing, are also enabling the creation of new businesses that are already highlighting the added value inherent in digital cultural heritage.

For this reason, the European Union lists digitisation of cultural heritage among its priorities in the field. The Commission’s new strategic framework “Culture Compass” (2025) introduces a dual mandate for the cultural sector: fostering “Europe for Culture” through social cohesion and “Culture for Europe” through economic competitiveness. This strategic vision is technically manifested in a new digital ecosystem for cultural heritage comprised of three infrastructures forming a nexus for digital cultural heritage: the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

While the EOSC pushes for open science and data re-use in other sectors, Data Space for Cultural Heritage is a form designed to support multi-layered ecosystems, in which data sovereignty is one of the key concepts, as opposed to platformisation, where all data is concentrated and held in the hands of private companies whose interest is to exploit data for commercial purposes. Additionally, the ECCCH imposes a cloud-based architecture as the primary means for institutional cooperation.

This paper argues that while these infrastructures aim for technical interoperability, they represent a significant governance challenge regarding the balance between “open science” and “data sovereignty”. By examining the power dynamics of digital ownership, I pose a critical question: Who owns the data in this emerging ecosystem for digital cultural heritage, and how are cultural heritage institutions being reshaped by these infrastructures?

To address this, the research employs a theoretical framework combining media archaeology and mediatisation theory. Rather than viewing these infrastructures as neutral, a media archaeological lens allows us to “excavate” the governance blueprints and technical standards of the nexus. I argue that the push for AI-readability and high-volume data exchange in the Data Space embeds a “technological logic” that favours standardised, economically viable data over non-standardised cultural resources. Furthermore, through the lens of mediatisation, I analyse how heritage institutions are forced to adapt their behaviours to the “platform logic” of the European clouds.

Finally, this paper demonstrates how policy-driven technological choices dictate the future of cultural memory, determining whether heritage institutions remain guardians of a “public good” or become providers for a commercialised data market.