Introduction

Science is a fundamental part of our cultural heritage, which has to be studied and preserved. The main focus of this project is the cataloguing and study of the scientific instruments that are preserved in many institutions of Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Valencia, mostly in secondary schools, universities and other scientific institutions. The Commission of Scientific Instruments was created inside the Catalan Society for the History of Science and Technology and aims to coordinate the different work on cataloguing and preservation of instruments. Moreover, it offers electronic resources for the study of the material culture of science. Nowadays, the main problem is the limited knowledge of the situation of the historical collections of scientific instruments that still exist in our context. The absence of heritage policy in the case of science involves that many outstanding collections of scientific instruments are at risk. They are stored in basements, in very bad situations, and just a small number of the collections have been catalogued. Many catalogues have not been published yet and they cannot be employed by the scientific community. Our project will create a collective catalogue of scientific instruments and coordinate the work in process and, at the same time, the results will offer advice and support to the new cataloguing projects. The project will encourage exchanges between scholars interested in the preservation of the material culture of science and the use of scientific instruments in museums or classrooms as didactic tools.