| Sumario: | This article argues that applying Roger Chartier's concept of "libraries without walls" to Colombian state-sponsored book series reveals how editorial practices—often shared across politically opposed parties—complicate narratives of partisan division and illuminate the entangled nature of the country's lettered elite. Building on Chartier's concept, the author proposes that Latin America book collections in the first half of the twentieth century belong to a broader, dynamic system of documents and publishers that continually redefine literary time and space with their bookish accumulation. Within this ecosystem, the author analyzes how, between 1940 and 1960, during Colombia's undeclared civil war, the Ministry of Education engaged intellectuals to curate two state-led book series: the Biblioteca Popular de Cultura Colombiana and the Biblioteca de Autores Colombianos. Despite political polarization, both projects reflected distinct partisan agendas yet shared material and institutional conditions shaped by scarcity and limited internationalization. Through these retrospective series, the Colombian state acted as librarian, archivist, and printer, using seriality to shape national literary taste. Ultimately, liberal and conservative literary projects converged within the same modernization and delayed development of publishing capitalism context, underscoring how book collections embody cultural ambitions and political negotiations in shaping a nation's literary canon.
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