Abstract:
The National Library of Brazil has scientific collections, such as the Cartographic
Collection Biblioteca Fluminense, which are hidden in the organizational structure adopted by
the institution, which maintains the division of its collections by material typology, which
reveals little about the informational nature of these publications. Thus, this research aims to
present a method of valuation of scientific collections, whose parameters developed are based
on the concept of documental heritage. The proposed method is divided into two stages: the
first is the study of the cultural provenance of the collection and/or documents to be valued in
order to obtain their heritage values; the second stage is the submission of these heritage
documents to the parameters, which are requirements for the recognition of these documents
and/or collections as scientific documental heritage. To do so, I used the single case study
method, because from the study of an exemplary collection, observing its peculiarities as a
scientific document, I was able to test the effectiveness of the parameters developed for the
valuation of these documents. Such parameters are: Place of scientific production (territorial
and institutional); Scientists (people); Scientific relevance (field of knowledge and
community); Use of data in new research. It was concluded that the use of these criteria
highlights the heritage values of the collection in accordance with the mission established for a
National Library, identifying in the collection the documents that are representative of the
Brazilian scientific production (scientific documental heritage), in addition to making evident
the link between these scientific documents and the community that produced them, in order to
contribute to the dissemination of the national scientific formation.
