Culture Knowledge Base
The NFDI4Culture Knowledge Base contains guidelines, reports, and specifications by the task areas of the consortium covering all aspects of research data management in the domain of material and immaterial cultural heritage. Additionally, we provide you with curated link recommendations to high quality open educational resources.
Type:
Digitizing, Inventorizing, Enriching 13 Items
14.02.2025
Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English
CDWA provides easy-to-understand and clear guidelines for structuring information when cataloging art and other cultural heritage objects in collections. It is supplemented by many examples.
21.08.2023
Guide for digital collection management at art museums (2021)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
An introduction to digitization for cultural heritage collections. It focuses on digital collection management and explains all the steps involved in the computer-assisted documentation of a collection and the subsequent networking of the data in comprehensive portals.
21.08.2023
Guide to the standardization of provenance information (2018)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
Recommendations for standardized and systematized documentation of results in provenance research, compiled by the Provenance Research Working Group and receiving a great deal of attention.
21.08.2023
Spectrum – the UK Collection Management Standard
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English,
German
The Spectrum documentation standard of the British Collections Trust has set guidelines for the comprehensive documentation of museum objects and all related work processes that are considered exemplary and are applied worldwide.
21.08.2023
Spectrum – Digital Asset Management (2013)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English
This document proposes a methodology for integrating the management of digital collections into the existing curatorial and administrative functions of the institution. It is intended as a companion document to the UK Collections Trust's Spectrum documentation standard.
16.08.2023
FADGI – Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials (2022)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English
This document presents professional methods for creating the most faithful digital reproductions possible of physical two-dimensional collection items such as texts, plans, maps, graphics, or photographs.Iit also focuses on documenting image-related information in metadata.
Documenting 3 Items
21.08.2023
Data Curation Profile
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The publication by Jake Carlson provides instructions on how to use the so-called "toolkit" for documenting research data, as well as templates and examples compiled for free use by Purdue University in the US.
21.08.2023
Data Documentation
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The site provides detailed information on why, how and which research data should be documented in accordance with the FAIR criteria, with regard to formats, vocabularies, languages, protocols, repositories, persistent identifications.
21.08.2023
Metadata in Daily Research
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The site explains the benefits of documenting metadata early in the research process, provides a good overview of the steps involved, and references best practices from everyday research.
Organizing 2 Items
21.08.2023
Introduction to data formats
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
This resource provides an introduction such as an overview of long-term and sustainable data formats and covers file formats, conversion, compatibility, long-term stability, metadata, and machine readability.
21.08.2023
Data Life Cycle
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The article provides an overview of the data lifecycle and its individual stages.
Overarching topics 3 Items
04.09.2025
Guideline for a FAIR Management of Cultural Research Data
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Angela Kailus
Version: 2.0.1
In order to be optimally re-usable, research data should be processed according to the FAIR principles. This guideline explains what these principles mean and how they can be implemented in cultural studies and heritage collections.
17.02.2025
Research Data in Cultural Studies – an introduction
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Martin Albrecht-Hohmaier, Katharina Bergmann, Christoph Eggersglüß, Andrea Polywka, Alexander Stark
Version: 1.0.1
A basic introduction to research data management in the arts, cultural studies and humanities, with explanations for the most important concepts, standards and tools.
28.01.2025
GESIS Guides to Digital Behavioral Data (DBD) (2024)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English
This still growing collection of guidelines and interviews already (2024) covers in the field of Digital Behavioral Data topics such as collection, processing, analysis, management and ethics.
Planning 22 Items
30.09.2025
LIDO handbook of cataloguing and publishing metadata on cultural objects, vol. 3: architecture and other immovable works (2025)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
This handbook is an application profile of the metadata standard LIDO, providing guidance on how to create coherently structured object descriptions for architectural and other immovable objects, and how to adhere to standards for best results (sharing and linking on the Web).
30.09.2025
LIDO handbook of cataloguing and publishing metadata on cultural objects, vol. 2: painting and sculpture (2022)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The LIDO Handbook is dedicated to objects of the genres painting and sculpture and is an application profile of the internationally established metadata standard LIDO, which serves as a guide for structuring information in local collection management systems.
30.09.2025
LIDO handbook of cataloguing and publishing metadata on cultural objects, vol. 1: graphic arts (2019)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
German
The handbook provides graphic collections with guidance on cataloguing their objects and integrating data into cross-collection contexts. It considers both the scholarly description of the objects and the informational organisation of the data.
25.03.2025
Archiving Social Media Data: A guide for archivists and researchers (2021)
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
English
Published by the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA), this guide provides a compact introduction to data-driven social media research, particularly useful for planning and beginners.
17.02.2025
Webinar "Einführung in Iconclass"
NFDI4Culture Video Guideline
Author(s):
Angela Kailus
Contributor(s):
Martin Albrecht-Hohmaier,
Frodo Podschwadek
Version: 1.0.0
This webinar introduces Iconclass, a classification system for the subject indexing of works of art and other cultural objects. It shows how to work with it during indexing and explains how using Iconclass can enhance the interoperability of data. Find presentation slides here.
17.02.2025
LIDO Training
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Barbara Fichtl
Version: 1.1.0
LIDO (Lightweight Information Describing Objects) is a metadata schema for the presentation and publication of data on cultural heritage objects. This training provides the basics for understanding and using LIDO.
Rights & Ethics 1 Items
22.07.2025
NFDI4Culture Communications Guideline on the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Oliver Vettermann, Martha Stellmacher
Version: 1.1.0
The aim of this guideline is to create a shared understanding of the CARE Principles among the members of NFDI4Culture. It provides recommendations on how to communicate content about and related to the CARE Principles.
Data sharing & publishing 3 Items
13.06.2025
Culture Graph Interchange Format
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Oleksandra Bruns, Etienne Posthumus, Harald Sack, Linnaea Söhn, Torsten Schrade, Jonatan Jalle Steller et al.
Version: 1.3.0
The Culture Graph Interchange Format is a lightweight data exchange format based on schema.org. It serves to integrate datasets from the domains of NFDI4Culture into the Culture Knowledge Graph and can enhance their discoverability on the World Wide Web.
12.06.2025
Data integration into the Culture Knowledge Graph
NFDI4Culture Guideline
Author(s):
Alexandra Büttner, Oleksandra Bruns, Heike Fliegl, Etienne Posthumus, Harald Sack, Torsten Schrade et al.
Version: 1.1.0
Data providers in the NFDI4Culture communities are invited to integrate metadata on research data into the Culture Knowledge Graph. The guideline outlines integration options and offers basic guidance for understanding the Culture Knowledge Graph.
14.08.2023
From project proposal to data publication
Link Recommendation
Language(s):
This task sheet for beginners contains eight key tasks on research data management, from data capture to publication: Data Management Plan, Data Structuring and Naming, Data Selection, File Formats, Metadata/README File, Legal Aspects, License Selection, Repository Selection.