Textile Forum Service grew out of Textilwerkstatt-Verlag (Textile Workshop Publications) at the beginning of 1998.
Since 1983, the main task undertaken by this small publishing house has been publication of TEXTILFORUM magazine. Until 1993 this was done for the benefit of Textilforum Association, a non-profit organisation. In addition, specialist German-language books and manuals that were useful to Association members were published.
The publishing house did not exist before 1983. The magazine belonged to the Textilforum Association that was founded, upon an initiative by Beatrijs Sterk, in 1981. From 1982, the publication was produced by Beatrijs Sterk in her Textile Workshop.
Beatrijs Sterk began operating the Workshop as a training institution for textile designers, course instructors and lecturers in 1978. This was a development of the Hannover Workshop, Centre for Creative Design, which she had founded, together with two German colleagues, after a Dutch model, upon her arrival in Hannover from Holland in 1971.
Since the political changes that took place in Europe in 1989/90, Textile Workshop Publications had concentrated on preparing parallel publications of its printed products in English, beginning in 1994. The publishing house was increasingly obliged to perform services for the European Textile Network founded in 1990; the restructuring of its activities this required has led, inter alia, to its name of 'Textile Forum Service'.
