CAA News Today
Americans for the Arts Merges with Business Committee for the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — October 31, 2008
Two nonprofit arts-advocacy groups, Americans for the Arts and Business Committee for the Arts (BCA), announced yesterday that they will merge their operations, creating the largest-ever advocacy group for the arts in the private sector. The partnership will further enable the organization to generate increased private-sector support for the arts and arts education by engaging and educating business leaders nationwide on the economic impact and value of the arts in business and community settings.
Americans for the Arts has issued a press release on the merger and also published two lists of frequently asked questions for its members and the general public.
Americans for the Arts Merges with Business Committee for the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — October 31, 2008
Two nonprofit arts-advocacy groups, Americans for the Arts and Business Committee for the Arts (BCA), announced yesterday that they will merge their operations, creating the largest-ever advocacy group for the arts in the private sector. The partnership will further enable the organization to generate increased private-sector support for the arts and arts education by engaging and educating business leaders nationwide on the economic impact and value of the arts in business and community settings.
Americans for the Arts has issued a press release on the merger and also published two lists of frequently asked questions for its members and the general public.
Authors, Publishers, and Google Reach Settlement
posted by Christopher Howard — October 29, 2008
The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google today announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the United States from the collections of a number of major US libraries participating in Google Book Search. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, would resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of AAP’s membership. The class action is subject to approval by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online, and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.
To read more about this landmark settlement, visit the Authors Guild v. Google Settlement Resources Page and the Google Book Search Copyright Settlement. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, the New York Times, and Wired all report on the story.
October Obituaries
posted by Christopher Howard — October 27, 2008
CAA recognizes the lives and careers of the following individuals in the arts, all of whom recently passed away.
- Albert Boime, an art historian and longtime professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who researched the social history of art, died on October 18, 2008. He was 75
- Robert H. Chaney, a Houston business man who collected contemporary Asian and British art, died October 22, 2008
- Patricia Faure, a Los Angeles–based art dealer, died October 21, 2008, at the age of 80
- Jason Gleeson, an Australian artist and art critic who helped shape the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, died on October 20, 2008, a month shy of his 93rd birthday
- Ardeshir Mohasses, an Iranian-born political cartoonist and satirist whose work was the subject of a recent exhibition at the Asia Society in New York, died on October 9, 2008. He was 70
- Iba Ndiaye, a highly influential modern painter from Senegal who also lived and worked in Paris, died October 5, 2008, at the age of 80
- Paritosh Sen, a pioneering and well-known Indian artist, died October 22, 2008. He was 80.
Read all past obituaries in the arts on the CAA website.
Free Digital Images for Scholarly Publications
posted by Christopher Howard — October 16, 2008
CAA reminds you that three major museums—the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—have made digital images of works from their collections available for free for scholarly publications.
National Gallery
As part of its ongoing commitment to support scholarship and encourage research into England’s collection of old-master paintings, the National Gallery waives reproduction charges for digital images for use in academic books and journals that meet specific criteria and where orders are processed and delivered via its Picture Library website. Authors publishing academic work relating to the gallery’s collection are encouraged to use high-quality digital images available only from National Gallery Images, where charges will be waived for nonprofit, short-run publications. Discounts are also available for image use in student theses, academic presentations or lectures, and noncommercial private use.
Images are available at A4 and A5 at 300 dpi/ppi. The picture files themselves are derived from fully color-calibrated digital-image files created by the National Gallery. The color is therefore consistent across all images in the collection, meaning image users are able to make informed comparisons about color, tone, and brightness, and be assured of consistent color reproduction through to print.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Since early 2007, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has ended charging reproduction fees for its images used in scholarly publications. Publishers will be able to download images from the museum’s collection of more than 25,000 works directly from its website.
The museum keeps a broad definition of “scholarly.” The images will be available to students and teachers, as well as to publishers, for use in their research and coursework. The museum will continue to charge commercial publications, but their termination of fees for reproduction may encourage other institutions to follow suit.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 2007 the Metropolitan Museum of Art formed a partnership, called Images for Academic Publishing, with the nonprofit digital-image provider ARTstor to offer high-resolution digital images of artworks in its collection for scholarly publication—free of charge. This initiative is intended to make it easier and less expensive for authors and publishers license images for reproduction. Under a special agreement with ARTstor, this service will be available to users—both individual and institutional—who are not ARTstor subscribers.
With this important step in overcoming a longstanding obstacle to scholarly art publication, the museum aims to serve its scholarly mission by disentangling many of its most frequently requested works of art from the burden of permissions paperwork—and from the confusion that often accompanies image rental, artwork copyright, photographic copyright, and licensing. Included are many works whose copyrights have expired (generally, works created before 1923 or whose creators died more than seventy years ago) are in this cluster of images. In some instances, however, third-party copyright permissions may be needed (such as where the underlying work in an image is still under copyright). Other terms and conditions also apply.
More Information
For more information on CAA’s work on digital images, publishing, copyright, and more, please see the Intellectual Property and the Arts section of the website.
CAA Member Survey Results
posted by Christopher Howard — October 15, 2008
CAA warmly thanks the 831 participants in a recent email survey, which was sent to 8,300 members whose database records indicate that their primary profession is: art/architectural historian, artist, administrator, curator, art-museum educator, or librarian. The results of the survey will be presented at the Board of Directors’ Strategic Planning Retreat on October 25, 2008, and will be incorporated into discussions on how to better serve all CAA members in the new strategic plan.
The survey contained one open-ended question: “What are the most pressing issues you face in your profession?” The following summary provides a synopsis of your responses, which are recorded in order of priority and frequency; many respondents gave multiple answers.
Art/Architectural Historians – 455 respondents
33% – Decrease in positions; increase in PhDs; reduction of tenured positions and increase in part-time and adjunct positions
17% – Difficulty finding publishers; insufficient number of art journals; decrease in presses publishing art history; tenure requirement for monographs vs. few presses publishing monographs
16% – Limited research funds and high cost of travel
13% – Work load vs. keeping up with the field and quality of life
11% – High cost of image reproduction; copyright restrictions
7% – Low salaries and need for pay equity
7% – Issues regarding resources and attention devoted to historical art vs. contemporary art; Western vs. non-Western art; national vs. global; traditional curriculum, research, and pedagogy vs. interdisciplinary curriculum, research, and pedagogy
7% – New technology demands: cost, training, accessibility
5% – Need for American public understanding of art and combating anti-intellectualism
4% – Viability, credibility, and relevance of art history to other disciplines
Artists – 305 respondents
40% – Earning enough to support creative work; finding jobs and job security
23% – Finding reliable galleries; support for exhibitions; support for creative work and research
19% – Need for exposure of work, networking, and negotiating the art world
17% – Low salaries and need for pay equity
13% – Reduction of tenured positions and increase in part-time and adjunct positions
5% – Maintaining art as a critical discipline on all levels of education
5% – Need for health insurance
5% – Heavy teaching load and higher expectations for productivity
5% – Need for greater preparation of entering students
Administrators – 47 respondents
45% – Decrease in federal, state, and private funding for research, travel, faculty, staff, and technology
10% – Decrease in scholarships and fellowships
10% – Reduction of full-time faculty and increase in part-time faculty
10% – Recruitment of qualified candidates for faculty positions given the expansion of disciplines and need for pedagogical expertise
7% – Decreased enrollment
6% – Need for pay equity between art historians and artists
5% – Work load vs. keeping up with the field
4% – Blurring of disciplines and need for curriculum revision; new forms of assessment
Curators – 14 respondents
44% – Financial stability of art museums; decrease in funds for research and scholarly exhibitions
19% – High stress, long hours, and diminished staff positions
15% – Devaluation of research
10% – How to communicate with the public
10% – Low salaries and need for pay equity
5% – Demands of exhibition funders
Art-Museum Educations – 6 respondents
25% – High stress, long hours, and diminished staff positions
10% – Maintaining links between museum educators and art historians
10% – Low salaries and need for pay equity
5% – Decrease in funds for public programs
Art Librarians – 4 respondents
30% – New technology equipment costs, training, and research
25% – Decreased funds for purchase of books and periodicals
10% – Recruitment of qualified candidates for staff positions
Because many respondents gave more than one answer, the percentages do not always add up to 100 percent.
HR Administrator Advocates for Adjunct Professors
posted by Christopher Howard — October 15, 2008
“Higher education—especially public higher education—would face major disruptions within five or six years if it doesn’t come up with some way to change the way adjuncts are treated.” So writes Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed, summarizing the words of A. G. Monaco, a senior human-resources official at the University of Akron, speaking at the annual meeting of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. In his article “Call to Arms for Adjuncts . . . From an Administrator,” Jaschik reports that Monaco offered an outline of steps that colleges should take to bridge the gap between the way tenure-track professors and their adjunct and part-time colleagues are treated. If not, colleges and universities could face increasing unionization, for better or worse, from what Monaco calls “a highly educated working poor.”
2009 Annual Conference Website Goes Live
posted by Emmanuel Lemakis — October 14, 2008
The website for the 2009 Annual Conference in Los Angeles, which contains registration information, travel and hotel details, Career Services features, reception and meeting listings, special events, and more, has been launched. You can also register for the conference online.
The conference website expands the Conference Information and Registration booklet that was mailed to all members earlier this month. A new feature is a list of frequently asked questions about the conference; more details will be added between now and February.
Complete session listings, including those held in ARTspace, will be posted soon. You will be able to sample the approximately 150 sessions in detail, search by keyword and browse by conference day, and find out who is speaking and the titles of their papers.
Online registration has begun. You can also buy tickets for other events, such as the Gala Reception, Professional Development Workshops, and postconference tours. Alternatively, you may use the printed forms in Conference Information and Registration.
Orphan-Works Legislation Dies in the House
posted by Christopher Howard — October 10, 2008
After a flurry of Congressional activity last week and the passing of the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act in the Senate, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge (PK) notes, orphan-works legislation has died in the House of Representatives. She writes:
The negotiations went on for hours and hours on [October 2–3], but in the end, PK, working with the user community (libraries, documentary filmmakers, educational institutions and the College Art Association) could not agree with on language with the House staff…. Time had run out.
Though several matters remained unresolved, which Sohn discusses, she was proud of the progress made so far and is pleased that the issues surrounding the documentation of a good-faith search have been narrowed so that future legislative efforts may be more fruitful.
Orphan-Works Legislation Dies in the House
posted by Christopher Howard — October 10, 2008
After a flurry of Congressional activity last week and the passing of the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act in the Senate, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge (PK) notes, orphan-works legislation has died in the House of Representatives. She writes:
The negotiations went on for hours and hours on [October 2–3], but in the end, PK, working with the user community (libraries, documentary filmmakers, educational institutions and the College Art Association) could not agree with on language with the House staff…. Time had run out.
Though several matters remained unresolved, which Sohn discusses, she was proud of the progress made so far and is pleased that the issues surrounding the documentation of a good-faith search have been narrowed so that future legislative efforts may be more fruitful.