Judith Hoffberg (1934 – 2009), was cofounder of the Art Libraries Society of North America in 1972. She was a librarian, archivist, lecturer, curator and art writer, and editor and publisher of Umbrella, a newsletter on artist's books, mail art, and Fluxus art.
Judith Hoffberg earned the B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1956. She went on to get an M.A. in Italian Language and Literature in 1960 and an M.L.S. from the UCLA School of Library Service in June 1964.
At the beginning of her career, Hoffberg worked as a cataloguer at the John Hopkins Bologna Center in Italy. From there, she moved on to being a Special Intern at the Library of Congress until 1967. In between 1967 and 1971, Hoffberg served as a fine arts librarian at the University of Pennsylvania and as an art, literature, and language bibliographer at the University of California, San Diego. From 1971 to 1973, Hoffberg became the Director of the Brand Art Center in Glendale, California (Leslie, 2012).
While serving as the Director of the Brand Art Center, Judith Hoffberg began to explore the issues and overall dismissive attitude towards art librarianship. In the early 1970s, the United States did not have a dedicated society for art librarians. Sub-sections of the ALA and other organizations did exist for specialty fields of librarianship, but Hoffberg felt as if they were not focused/specific enough to be a true community. In addition to the exclusion of art librarians, new art materials like artists' books and art ephemera (posters, pamphlets, exhibition catalogs, mail art, etc.) were showing up in collections (Leslie, 2012).
Hoffberg founded the online quarterly, Umbrella-- covering the arena of artists' books, art books and other multiple editions, including audio and new media. Umbrella reviewed new bookworks by artists, exhibitions, with special sections that focused on photographic and art books. (open access to Umbrella is here: http://www.umbrellaeditions.com/ )
Exhibitions Hoffberg curated were hosted by the University of California at Santa Barbara, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art; the San Antonio Art Institute, the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans; Franklin Furnace in New York City; Texas Woman's University, the Ringling School of Art and Design, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and the Oregon School of Arts & Crafts among others.
Selected Publications
- Co-Editor, Directory of Art Libraries & Visual Resource Collections in North America (New York, Neal Schuman, 1978)
- "Bibliography of Women Artists' Books", Chrysalis (Spring 1978)
- "Artists' Books" in Art & Technology: The History & Method of Fine Papermaking (San Francisco, World Print Council, 1979)
- Editor & Publisher, Artists' Publications in Print, 1980–83
- "Art Book Column" in High Performance Magazine, 1984–1994
- "Distribution and its Discontents" in Art Papers (Atlanta) May–June 1990
- Publisher, Cross<+>Currents: Books from the Edge of the Pacific (Pasadena, Umbrella Associates, 1992)
- "Learning to Read Art: The Art of Artists' Books," The New Bookbinder, vol. 13, 1993
- Publisher, The Book Maker's Desire: Writings on the Art of the Book by Buzz Spector (Pasadena, Umbrella Editions, 1995)
- Publisher, Umbrella: The Anthology (Santa Monica, Umbrella Editions, 2000)
- Editor and author, Women of the Book: Jewish Artists, Jewish Themes (Boca Raton, Friends of the Library, 2001).
Sources
PC-Student in Library History, University of South Florida, School of Information.
Leslie, A. M. (2012). The career and collection of Judith A. Hoffberg. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
Indiana University Indianapolis. (2025). Digital collections: Umbrella. https://library.indianapolis.iu.edu/digitalcollections/Umbrella
Nelson, V. J. (2009, January 27). Judith Hoffberg dies at 74: Art librarian and curator. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-judithhoffberg28-2009jan28-story.html
Wikipedia: Judith Hoffberg
Librarians We Have Lost, Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026 is a project of the Library History Round Table.
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Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Distinguished University Professor
School of Information
University of South Florida
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