CAA News Today

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Does Private Funding Threaten Museums’ Public Missions?

With an incoming presidential cabinet threatening to slash public spending, placing additional strain on institutions, one might well ask: How will the next generation of museums be funded? What changes in museum funding models are already taking place, both in the US and elsewhere? (Read more from Artsy.)

Some Advice on Building Conference Panels

Some of the best panels I’ve created have been with very senior scholars. Even if you are a junior scholar, you can bet that if your panel is well assembled and you craft your approach email with kindness and respect, it’s very likely that invited senior scholars may say yes. (Read more from Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD.)

Study on Arts Graduates Provides Continuing Evidence on the Value of an Arts Degree

A recent study provides new evidence that individuals with degrees in the arts from North American institutions are extremely satisfied with their arts education, with no substantive changes across income levels and employment status. The report analyzes data from more than 35,000 arts alumni of all ages who responded to a fall 2015 survey. (Read more from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project.)

Against the Design Thinking Meeting

The people who speak the language of design thinking are the cool kids. Not just the people with the awesome glasses and the black clothing. These are the people who have those awesome jobs with “innovation” or “disruption” on their business cards. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Artists Are Throwing Wrenches into the Art World’s Works

Even as one visible portion of the art world becomes ever more soaked in money, artists are picking up the ideas of first- and second-generation institutional critique and adapting them to the needs of the present. With increasing frequency, they are investigating, tweaking, and even striking out against the operation of museums, galleries, and the market as an integral part of their larger practices. (Read more from ARTnews.)

The Institution as User: Museums on Social Media

How does a museum talk? Its voice lives in wall texts, whether they deliver art history or gently admonish against touching work or using flash photography. Its tone has to be serious enough to honor the histories it was built to protect, and to convince visitors that the twenty dollars they paid to get in was well spent. (Read more from Art in America.)

Diversity in the Open-Access Movement, Part 1: Differing Definitions

Not only is there wide disagreement as to what “freely available” in open access really means, but not everyone in the movement even agrees that all scholarship must be freely available, or how quickly it should be made freely available, or what mechanisms are appropriate for making it that way. Since the fact of this ideological diversity doesn’t seem to be self-evident, it might be helpful to lay out some evidence for it here. (Read more from the Scholarly Kitchen.)

Strengthening Networks, Sparking Change: Museums and Libraries as Community Catalysts

A new report from the Institute of Museum and Library Services includes case studies and a discussion of conceptual frameworks that can guide libraries, archives, and museums that seek to spark catalytic change in their communities. (Read more from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.)