Conference Agenda

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).

The BatoLabo project was born at the confluence of several initiatives carried out in the Loire region in recent years: work on a Loire Parliament, efforts to recognise nautical knowledge in the Loire as French intangible cultural heritage, and collective initiatives such as the “Grande Remontée” of the Loire river. These experiences are part of a broader context of knowledge circulation and co-production, mobilising forms of interdisciplinarity rooted in territories and practices (Darbellay; Barjot; Riaux et al.).

The team behind BatoLabo is engaged in these dynamics, which question the place of rivers in our societies, the way they are inhabited and governed, and the ways in which their voices can be heard. This approach is part of a re-examination of the modern separation between nature and culture and a focus on humans and non-humans (Descola; Latour), as it is now extended by work in human ecology and environmental humanities (Miranda Pires & Bruckmeier).

Within this framework, BatoLabo explores how itinerant research and creative practices can become concrete supports for collective reflection on river governance and health. The project adopts a resolutely interdisciplinary approach, combining social sciences, environmental sciences and artistic practices, in line with critical analyses of interdisciplinarity applied to socio-ecological issues (Jacobs & Frickel; Frodeman et al.; Ferreira & Pontes). In concrete terms, it takes the form of a long-distance voyage from the Loire to the Danube aboard a Loire barge (departing in September 2025).

Based on this experience, the project poses a central question: how can attachments to river environments, as gathered through surveys, contribute to the recognition of the rights of nature in Europe? This question is part of a rapidly developing field of research on the rights of nature and their legal, political and cultural implementation (David; Gilbert et al.). It takes on particular importance in the European context, marked by profound morphological transformations of watercourses and lasting degradation of their ecosystems (Linton; Petts; Tockner et al.; Vörösmarty et al.).

BatoLabo is thus in dialogue with programmes such as Bourges European Capital of Culture 2028, the International Rivers movement led by Camille de Toledo and the European Citizens' Initiative Right of Nature. The project positions itself as a field of observation and investigation into the effects, appropriations and resistance encountered by these legal and political proposals in the territories they cover, in relation to existing governance frameworks (Larrère; Ragueneau; Makowiak & Aragão).

BatoLabo's scientific project is based on scientific projects such as Fluvioscope (National Network of Social Sciences and Humanities Centres, Zones Ateliers Network) and is organised around three complementary axes: documenting attachments to river environments, observing modes of governance and analysing the ecological health of rivers. The ethnographic survey aims to document the reciprocal relationships between humans and non-humans, highlighting the emotions, conflicts and forms of care that structure relationships with waterways (Descola & Pálsson; Chew & Gross, n.d.). An environmental component, conducted with INRAE in Thonon-les-Bains, studies the composition of phytoplankton and the effects of developments on river health using environmental DNA samples.