Elizabeth Huff worked in the East Asian Library for two decades, beginning in 1947. She moved from Massachusetts to California to become the founding librarian of the East Asian collection, first unifying Berkeley’s scattered East Asian collections and then building them into the foremost East Asian library in the United States. Until her retirement in 1968, she vigorously expanded the collections through her knowledgeable allocation of grants and donations. Huff had studied Asian languages and art at Mills College and at Radcliffe. She had been studying in China when the Japanese invaded, and she was interned in a prison camp during the Pacific War. After the war, she returned to her studies at Harvard. At Berkeley, she assiduously cultivated collectors, sellers, and potential donors of Asian works in all parts of the world. In addition to assembling the most formidable American collection of East Asian texts, Huff used her background in Asian art to create a world-class collection of publications on Chinese and Japanese art at Berkeley. Huff was one of the university’s great institution builders, who made important connections with donors and scholars throughout East Asia, bringing Berkeley into international prominence.
Read more:
Harvard profile on Elizabeth
Article from the Journal of East Asian Libraries
Oral history interview of Elizabeth Huff by Rosemary Levenson