Deborah Hollis

Deborah Hollis is a professor on the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, where she leads the instruction and outreach section of the Rare & Distinctive (RaD) Collections Team. Her teaching emphasizes active and tactile learning through engagement with primary and unique sources. One of the key resources she and her team use is the David H. Tippit Photobook Collection, a highly utilized resource across the arts and sciences curriculum.

The Tippit Collection reflects the evolution of twentieth-century fine art photobooks, featuring first and limited editions across a wide range of genres. Its scope has expanded to include a more inclusive and international array of image makers, moving beyond the titles historically offered by Western European and American publishers who first popularized this portable art form. In addition to serving as a valuable resource for interdisciplinary media arts majors, Hollis and her colleagues introduce photobook and artists’ book formats to classes in diverse fields such as science writing, environmental design, and political science.

Hollis is an active member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the Society of Photographic Education (SPE), and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). She frequently reviews student and professional portfolios, seeing it as an opportunity to discover emerging artists and new trends in the field.

Her research and publications focus on teaching with primary sources and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within academic librarianship. A current project involves analyzing photobook collections to identify collecting patterns and trends across five major institutions.

In June 2022, Hollis served as a panelist on Placing Your Photographic Bookwork in Public, Curatorial, and Academic Collections, the closing conversation of The Art of the Photobook series organized by Mary Virginia Swanson at the Griffin Museum of Photography.