Assessing The Significance Of Early Modern Mathematical Printed Books: Lessons From A Cross-Collection Assessment

Assessing the significance of cultural-heritage collections is gaining importance as an essential stepping stone in collection management. By uncovering the significance of a collection for different groups in society ― such as researchers, heritage professionals, teachers, the interested public, policymakers etc. ― collection curators can make well-founded decisions about collection development: what topics to invest in, what to digitise first, what to show in an exhibition etc. However, the existing models for assessing significance were developed for museum objects and are not particularly suited to the needs of heritage collections in libraries. So how would you assess the significance of library heritage collections?