The object biography as the cornerstone for a new understanding of collection representation

Blog post of the CDI of the FAU

The Competence Centre for Research Data & Information (CDI) at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are developing the innovative concept of object biographies as part of NFDI4Objects in order to prepare and utilise object data for science and research. The underlying idea is to transfer the concept of biography to material cultural assets. In this way, objects are understood in the context of their own history and their environment. The object biography depicts the history of an object from its production to its current whereabouts, including all intermediate steps. This lays a new foundation for understanding the creation and representation of collection data. The object biography is translated into digital form as a data model using the CIDOC CRM and can thus be incorporated into the knowledge graph of NFDI4Objects for the networking and integration of heterogeneous and multidisciplinary data.

A more comprehensive blog post on the object biography and further links can be found on the FAU CDI website: https://www.cdi.fau.de/2025/07/29/die-objektbiografie-als-grundstein-fuer-ein-neues-verstaendnis-von-sammlungsrepraesentation/