Judith Hoffberg


Judith Hoffberg was a librarian, archivist, lecturer, a curator and art writer, and editor and publisher of Umbrella, a newsletter on artist's books, mail art, and Fluxus art.

Biography

Hoffberg received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA 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.
She was a Special Intern at the Library of Congress after serving as a cataloguer in 1964–65 at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center in Italy. At the Library of Congress, she was a cataloguer in the Prints & Photographs Division until 1967, when she served as the Fine Arts Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania from 1967–1969. She went on to UCSD from 1969 to 1971 as art, literature and language bibliographer and to the Brand Library in Glendale, CA as Director from 1971 to 1973. From 1974 to 1976, she worked for the Smithsonian Institution as Archivist and Editorial Assistant for the Bicentennial Bibliography of American Arts.
In 1973, she co-founded Art Libraries Society of North America. She served as the Society's first Chairman, editor of ARLIS/NA Newsletter from 1972 to 1977 and its Executive Secretary from 1974 to 1977.
In 1978, Hoffberg founded Umbrella Associates. Her work included consulting with archives and libraries. She edited and published Umbrella, a newsletter about artists' books and publications. In her work as a writer, editor, and curator, she enthusiastically championed Fluxus, inexpensive artists' books, mail art, rubber-stamp art, and many other offbeat forms of expression of the second half of the 20th century. Hoffberg also lectured widely throughout the US and abroad. Her collection of artist/s books is split between the University of California at Los Angeles and the UCSB; her collection of some 15,000 pieces of Umbrelliana is at the UCSD, in La Jolla.
In 2000, Hoffberg and Béatrice Coron founded the International Edible Book Festival.
Hoffberg was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2008 and died of lymphoma the following year.

Grants and awards