IDENTIFYING AND ANALYSING PROVENANCE MARKS IN MANGUINHOS’S COLLECTION

Abstract

When considering the provenance of a collection, it is essential to first know the history of the institution, the library, and the collection itself, where the specimens and their marks are inserted; indeed, these collections are part of a whole and there is certainly a purpose for each entry and permanence movement of the items that constitute it. We tried to consider some singularities between property marks and provenance marks, applying this view to the Manguinhos Library collection. At first, we just observed, then we photographed and checked "strange" marks for future identification, and then we began to systematically record the marks found on the items in a spreadsheet. In a next step, we began to approach a vocabulary of these marks and to appropriate knowledge that could be transmuted into information. The marks of provenance, therefore, have a sense of highlighting the formation and development of the collection resulting from 120 years of institutional research, based on the documentary, scientific, and cultural potential heritage of the Manguinhos collection. Just as it has been part of the scientific production of Fiocruz throughout its existence, it is also part of its cultural heritage and that of the society in which it operates.