Scientific encounters between Colombia and the United States analyzed through publishing practices in Caldasia journal: The birds of the Republic of Colombia as a publishing event

Abstract

In 1948, American ornithologist Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee began publishing what would be the most complete list of birds from Colombia that had ever been printed up to that time. His work was called The Birds of the Republic of Colombia (TBRC), and at the invitation of Armando Dugand, the director of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and of the Caldasia journal, this work was exclusively published in the journal in five installments spanning four years. This paper analyzes the publishing aspects that particularly influenced the process of carrying out this work, with the objective of showing that scientific practices and publishing practices are not two absolutely separate domains. The circuit of communication present in TBRC's development is analyzed, specifically the efforts of the editor, printer and author to bring this work to fruition. This analysis demonstrates the following: (i) how the scientific interests of Meyer and the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales converge, (ii) the contradictions between scientific interests that promoted the publication of TBRC and the publishing rationale of a journal and (iii) how unforeseen publishing issues of the time, such as the increase in printing costs due to inflation, influenced the final structure of the work.

Keywords: History of Colombia; History of biology; History of the book; Journals; Ornithology; Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee.