CHICAGO, December 2003. Cultural leaders surveyed recently in Chicago are optimistic about the future for the industry and the confidence index is now at 62 for the industry, according to the most recent DHR International cultural confidence index (the index is based on a scale of 1 to 100, with 50 as neutral and 100 as most optimistic). This is in comparison to a much more pessimistic view of the industry expressed six months ago, when the majority of the cultural leaders believed the future for the industry was pessimistic and the index was at an all time low of 40.

This paper will address the economic value of having photographic resources available in digital formats.

This work was carried out by the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University's Teachers College, under a cooperative agreement between the National Endowment for the Arts and the San Francisco Study Center. The data here represent the answers of Jazz musicians in New Orleans and the aggregated answers of jazz musicians in the 3 study cities. They cover questions regarding income, employment, teaching and mentoring, professional development, professional representation, union membership and personal and professional considerations.

While the Detroit Symphony Orchestra continues to bask in the glow of its new $60-million cultural palace, a sudden surge of red ink revives chilling memories of the bad old days.

The DSO will announce an operating deficit of nearly $2 million on a $28-million budget at its annual meeting of members on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the orchestra's finances.

The 47th Annual Conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) - January 10-14, 2004 in New York - is the most important conference in the USA concerning bookings of concerts, dance and other performing arts. Many important venues are visiting, in order to talk to new artists, agents and network with other "presenters".

The newly amalgamated North West University (former Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education and the University of the North West) has started a brand new Institute for Arts Management and Development.

In an effort to give downtown Baton Rouge it's own distinctive character, city planners are creating a downtown entertainment district to encourage arts, culture and entertainment development. "Among the options for creating a district are tax incentives, rebates on building permits, zoning restrictions and extending the legal hours of operation for venues that serve alcohol."

The Center for Arts and Culture, Contemporary Arts Center, Creative Industry, Tulane University School of Architecture, the University of New Orleans, and Xavier University-with funding from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the New Orleans Mayors Office of Economic Development-are hosting "Creative Investments in New Orleans," a one-and-a-half day forum on December 11-12, 2003.

The General Meeting of the European Festivals Association, held in Wroclaw end of October, hosted by the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans, took unanimously the historical decision, after having celebrated the 50th anniversary of the foundation of EFA by a jubilee festival in 2002, to relocate the main office from Coppet (Switzerland) to Ghent/Brussels (Belgium) in 2004.

The purpose of this project is to create a platform for the development of contemporary dance forms in Russia and for exchange in this area between Russia and other countries. We see a need for innovation in dance education and intend to introduce new dance forms to the public, to the community and to the schooling system. Our fields of interest and activity are modern, postmodern and contemporary dance and movement forms, butho dance, contact improvisation, physical theatre, modern pantomime and performance art. There is a need to improve the conditions under which these forms can develop in Russia.

A report from the Asia-Europe Meeting Arts Promotion Agency Network Conference, organised by ASEF, the International Federation of Art Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) and the National Arts Council, Singapore.

The University of Leicester is to host the South Asian Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive (SALIDAA), an interactive collection of material by artists and writers from the South Asian community in Britain, many of whom have strong connections with Leicester.

North Carolina was one of the few states to increase its 2003-4 arts funding (by $377,000). With a state economy stuck in reverse, says Byron Woods in the Independent Weekly (10/22/03), the arts were in for "the yearly ritual of death by a thousand cuts." But advocates petitioned and legislators came through. "A long tradition of state support for the arts fundamentally influenced the outcome," says Woods. Since 1940, N.C. started the first state symphony, state art museum, state school of the arts, department of cultural affairs and urban arts program. "So we weren't trying to convince legislators about something that they hadn't experienced in their own childhood, in public schools and across the state," Secretary of Cultural Resources Lisbeth Evans says.

Audience data can inform and shape the policy and activities of arts organisations, though its value frequently goes unrecognised. A new study by Kieran Cooper and Beth Aplin has examined why, and suggests what needs to be done to enable arts managers to make the most of the data available to them.
Nick Case of Oxford ArchDigital describes the advantages of making a museum' s collections available online; and Christopher Lawrence of The Academy of Ancient Music considers the position of touring organisations that have no automatic right to access information about their attenders.

Design for Accessibility: A Cultural Administrator's Handbook represents an update of the Arts Endowment's The Arts and 504 (1992) with additional information from the 700-page Design for Accessibility: An Arts Administrator's Guide produced by the Arts Endowment and NASAA in 1994. This resource is designed to help you not only comply with Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but to assist you in making access an integral part of your organization's planning, mission, programs, outreach, meetings, budget and staffing.

In recent years there have been unprecedented building and redevelopment programs in the museum sector. Some have been major 'greenfield' developments; others programs of renewal while the institution continued to operate. This conference seeks to examine how such projects can be managed effectively while delivering quality outcomes within the restraints of budget and time.

It is around the particularities of cultural marketing that entrepreneurship and leadership in marketing the arts must be articulated. An article by Francois Colbert, Montreal

In this study by Silvia Bagdadli (Bocconi University in Milan, Italy) on cooperation among Italian museums and theatres, the author uses multiple case studies to define a typology of cultural networks.

In Norway, as in many other countries, cultural policies are undergoing deep change. Libraries, archives and museums used to be managed by different public bodies. From January 1, 2003 they are supervised by a single organisation. In the future, the three cultural sectors will be expected to coordinate and integrate their activities.

State arts spending in the U.S. will fall another 23 percent in FY 2004, to around $274 million, having dropped from $409 million in 2002 to $355 million in 2003, says Jason Edward Kaufman in The Art Newspaper (9/26/03). At least 36 states are slashing funding, with some funds nearly eliminated. California's arts budget, cut from $32 million to $18 million last year, got $1 million this year, putting it in last place (three cents per capita). Florida Governor Jeb Bush cut his state's arts budget from $28 million to $5.9 million, and Michigan trimmed half of its $22-million budget, with the Detroit Institute of Arts getting $2.24 million, cut from $4.43 million last year. Colorado left its arts agency with only $200,000.