CAA News Today
New Executive Director at the National Humanities Alliance
posted by admin — July 16, 2005
The National Humanities Alliance board of directors has named Jessica Jones Irons its new executive director. She succeeds John Hammer, who retired in December 2004 after seventeen years in the position.
The National Humanities Alliance, a coalition of more than eighty nonprofit organizations including CAA, monitors and takes action on a variety of legislative, regulatory, and judicial issues, including federal funding, copyright and intellectual property, freedom of expression, and access to government information. For more details, visit www.nhalliance.org.
Senate Cultural Caucus Formed
posted by admin — July 16, 2005
Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) have come together to serve as co-chairs of a new bipartisan Senate caucus. In the letter announcing its formation, the Senate Cultural Caucus seeks �to bring focus to the arts and humanities and the positive impact they have on our daily lives.� The caucus, which will likely serve as a strong base of support for pro-arts legislation in the Senate, will highlight the work of the three primary federal cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The caucus chairs aim to recruit at least forty more senators by the end of the year. If the total reaches fifty-one, the caucus would create a powerful bipartisan bloc for promoting arts legislation. The House of Representatives created the Congressional Humanities Caucus in early 2005, as well as the Arts Caucus in 1997, which currently has more than 180 members.
Contact your senators and urge them to join the Cultural Caucus today!
Budget Requests for Federal Arts Agencies
posted by admin — May 16, 2005
In early February, President George W. Bush released his fiscal year 2006 budget, which calls for level funding for both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
In spite of the level funding, the budget includes a proposed redistribution of $6.5 million that would result in a 30 percent cut to the NEA Challenge America program, which distributes grants for arts education and improved access to the arts, especially in underserved communities. The president’s request for a 12 percent funding boost for the Office of Museum Services, however, is encouraging.
Unfortunately, the president’s budget also proposes to eliminate funding for the Department of Education’s Arts in Education programs. This action would put at risk programs such as arts collaborations with schools, professional development for teachers, and arts programs for youths in underserved communities. In the past, funding for these programs has been restored by the Senate and accepted by the House in conference committee.
The president’s budget is the first step in the appropriations process. While his proposal serves as framework for setting the nation’s budget, Congress has the power to set its own priorities and change these funding levels. You can make your voice heard by writing to your member of Congress and urging him or her to increase funding for arts and cultures and to restore funding for arts in education programs.
Treasury Department Lifts Ban on Foreign Letters
posted by admin — May 15, 2005
The U.S. Treasury Department has lifted the embargo that prevented the circulation of books and journal articles from authors who live in Iran, Cuba, or Sudan. These regulations prohibited literary, scientific, political, and artistic works, as well as collaborations among scholars, from being edited by U.S. publishers without government permission.
Join CAA for Arts Advocacy Day and Humanities Advocacy Day
posted by admin — March 16, 2005
Once again, CAA will be a national cosponsor of Arts Advocacy Day and Humanities Advocacy Day in 2005-we encourage our members to participate in both events.
Arts Advocacy Day takes place March 14-15, 2005. Held in Washington, D.C., this event brings together a broad cross-section of America’s national cultural organizations to underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts, the humanities, and arts education, as well as other programs within the federal government that have an impact on the visual and performing arts.
Humanities Advocacy Day takes place April 6-7, 2005. Also held in Washington, D.C., this event provides a unique opportunity for concerned citizens to communicate to Congress the vital importance of federal support for research and education in the humanities.
For more information on how to participate in Arts Advocacy Day and Humanities Advocacy Day, please contact Rebecca Cederholm, manager of governance and advocacy, at rcederholm@collegeart.org.
NEA/NEH Funding Update
posted by admin — March 16, 2005
In early February, President George W. Bush’s fiscal year 2004 budget was released, which calls for increases to both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) over their 2003 amounts.
The NEH in particular has received the largest requested increase in several years’-Bush is asking for an additional $25 million for the endowment’s We the People initiative on American history, culture, and civics. The president has also requested a total of $117 million for the NEA in the coming year, which is a very modest increase in the endowment’s budget over the previous year, and will only account for mandated cost-of-living increases.
Congress will draft its own version of the president’s budget over the next several months, with the goal of having it finalized in October 2003.
CAA Needs Your Copyright Anecdotes!
posted by admin — March 15, 2005
The College Art Association is preparing to file formal comments with the U.S. Copyright Office in support of a proposal to alter the current copyright law to address the problem of "orphan works"— works that are still in copyright, but where the copyright holder cannot be found and the rights cleared.
Scholars and publishers working in 20th-century art are familiar with this problem: You want to publish a picture or quote a text; you are ready to clear permissions and pay any necessary fees, but you can’t find the artist or author, or an estate. What do you do?
CAA needs your anecdotes as soon as possible, detailing specific examples where you were unable to use material in your research or publication because you could not find the rights holder, or where you were obliged to publish without obtaining permission, after making every effort to find a rights holder. Your stories will be cited anonymously, without identifying information, and sources will be kept confidential.
Summary of the U.S. Copyright Office Initiative
The U.S. Copyright Office has begun a proceeding to seek information about "orphan works." Orphan works are works (images/photos, letters, books, works of art, and others) that are still formally protected by copyright, but where a potential user—scholar, teacher, artist, publisher or other person or institution—is unable to clear rights because a) there is no copyright information associated with the work; b) the information is inadequate or inaccurate; or c) attempts to contact possible rights holders have proved futile (no one at last known address; publisher out of business, no responses to letters, etc.). Examples of such orphan works might be unsourced/uncredited photographs in older books; foreign works without copyright information; unsigned works of art; and letters written by persons who died within the last seventy years but who left no (findable) heirs. For CAA members, the problems posed by orphan works can be considerable. The Copyright Office has recognized that there is some value in being able to use these works, even if rights cannot be cleared. The Copyright Office issued a Notice seeking information on the "orphan works" problem on January 26, 2005.
The problem of finding the holders of rights in orphan works has been exacerbated by the recent extension of the term of copyright, which has postponed the date on which certain older works would otherwise enter the public domain (usually if the author has died before 1923). However, the problem of orphan works is certainly not confined to older works; information accompanying far newer and even recent works may also be inadequate for a user today to find the rights holder.
What CAA Is Doing
The College Art Association, with many others (including libraries, museums, public-interest groups and associations), plans to file comments in response to this Notice. CAA will ask the Copyright Office to recognize the substantial problems posed for individual users, publishers, museums, libraries and others by their inability to clear rights in orphan works. As part of the proceeding, the Copyright Office will consider proposals for ways to improve this situation. These might include amending the copyright law to permit uses of orphan works without users being unduly fearful that rightful copyright owners might emerge to claim a copyright infringement. This is an opportunity for us to make our voices heard in Washington on how copyright affects us!
Advocacy Update
posted by admin — September 16, 2004
In advance of the November 2004 United States presidential election, CAA would like to provide our members with information on where the Democratic and Republican candidates stand vis-a-vis federal funding for the arts and humanities.
George W. Bush, the Republican Party candidate for president, has not once requested a budget cut to either the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) or the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) during his tenure as president. His first budget, in fiscal year (FY) 2002, called for level funding for both the NEA and NEH. His second budget (FY 2003) called for a modest cost-of-living increase for each of the endowments. His third budget (FY 2004) included a $26 million increase for the NEH’s budget and level funding for the NEA. The increase to the NEH’s budget in FY 2004 funded the We the People initiative, which is designed to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history, culture, and ideas. The president’s fourth budget (FY 2005) includes an $18 million increase for the NEA and a $27 million increase for the NEH. The requested increase for the NEA will fund a major new initiative, American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius, which will combine arts presentations with education programming to provide Americans with access to their cultural and artistic legacy. The requested increase for the NEH will continue to fund the We the People initiative.
John F. Kerry, the Democratic Party candidate for president, opposed efforts to reduce funding to the NEA and the NEH in the mid-1990s. The Senate last voted on an amendment to cut funding for the NEA in 2000; as with similar proposals in previous years, Kerry voted against the amendment, which was rejected 27 to 73. According to the Kerry campaign, he has secured millions of dollars in federal funds for arts and cultural institutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts while serving in the U.S. Senate, which benefited the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, the John Adams Collection at the Boston Public Library, and the Museum of Science, Boston.
Report from Washington: Humanities Advocacy Day and Arts Advocacy Day
posted by admin — July 16, 2004
CAA cosponsored this year’s Humanities Advocacy Day (March 15-16, 2004), hosted by the National Humanities Alliance, and Arts Advocacy Day (March 29-31, 2004), hosted by Americans for the Arts; both took place in Washington, D.C. These two events brought together a broad cross-section of national cultural organizations, academics, and grassroots arts leaders to promote the arts, arts education, and the humanities to Congress by requesting increased support for federal cultural agencies.
CAA member Phoebe Farris of Purdue University joined CAA Executive Director Susan Ball for Humanities Advocacy Day. They visited the offices of key members of the Senate and the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which deals directly with funding for federal cultural agencies, in addition to meeting other legislators. Farris, Ball, and other humanities advocates from around the country called for Congress to support President George W. Bush’s budget request of $162 million for the NEH in fiscal year (FY) 2005. This funding will support, among other things, the We the People initiative to enhance understanding of American history and culture; education programs to strengthen teaching and learning in schools, colleges, and universities; preservation and access grants to save unique historical, cultural, and intellectual recourses; and challenge grants to strengthen the institutional base of the humanities.
At Arts Advocacy Day, newly elected CAA President Ellen K. Levy joined CAA representatives Marta Teegen and Rebecca Cederholm on Capitol Hill to promote several important arts policy matters. They urged Congress to support a budget of $170 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in FY 2005, including President Bush’s request for $18 million to fund American Masterpieces, a major new initiative at the NEA that will combine arts presentations with education programming to provide Americans with access to their cultural and artistic legacy.
Levy and Cederholm visited the offices of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Representative Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), and Representative Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY), among several others, to urge them to continue supporting legislation that would allow artists to take a fair-market-value tax deduction for works of art donated to nonprofit institutions. Levy, Cederholm, and other arts advocates also called on Congress to require the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to adopt immediate reforms that would ensure timely processing of visa petitions related to nonprofit arts groups. Many nonprofit organizations confront untenable delays and uncertainties while getting approval of visa petitions for international guest artists and scholars.
Teegen visited members of the House Ways and Means Committee to discuss the Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2003. As reported in the May issue of CAA News, the Senate passed legislation that gives the president the authority to impose restrictions that prevent the import of cultural materials into the U.S. that have been illegally removed from Iraq since August 1990. The House has yet to vote on this important legislation, which is part of a larger, broadly supported tariff bill.
Know Your Rights: What to do if You’re Stopped by the Police
posted by admin — July 15, 2004
The ACLU has provided a advice regarding your rights if stopped or questioned by the police. To access this information please go to the ACLU Website.