Neighbourhood Impacts is a longitudinal research study into the impact of the Liverpool European Capital of Culture (ECoC) on local residents. It explores what local people felt about the Liverpool ECoC, their levels of cultural participation, and their perceptions of their city and some of its individual neighbourhoods.

Tourism and the business of culture: the views of small and medium-sized tourism businesses on Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 is the result of in-depth interviews and an on-line survey of small- and medium-sized enterprises within Liverpool and Merseysides visitor economy.

The Economic Impacts of Visits Influenced by the Liverpool European Capital of Culture in 2008 sets out to understand the visitor economy in 2008, and estimate how it was affected by the Liverpool ECoC. Student Perceptions of the European Capital of Culture: University Choice and Liverpool 08 considers the influence of the Liverpool ECoC on student choice, through 35 focus groups of first year undergraduates across all faculties of the University of Liverpool.

This project underscores the critical role of our nations museums and libraries in helping citizens build such 21st century skills as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness.

At a time when increasingly advanced skills are required for success in life and work, people of all ages are seeking a diverse range of learning experiences to inspire, guide, and enhance their personal and professional lives.

Libraries and museums can embrace this opportunity to build on past achievements and chart promising new directions. One of these critical new directions involves developing a comprehensive, purposeful approach around 21st century skills. With 17,500 museums and 123,000 libraries across our nation, every community in the United States stands to benefit from the leadership of these institutions.

The European Cultural Foundation is delighted to announce that the Board of ECF has appointed Katherine Watson as the Foundation's new Director. The decision was taken during ECF's Board meeting in Brussels on June 1st. Katherine has been ECF's Acting Director since November 2009. During this period, she and the ECF staff have successfully implemented ECF's new content programmes. Katherine looks forward to continuing to lead the Foundation with her unique energy and vision.

The 1st Kufstein Summer School in Greece (August 22-28, 2010) focuses on the significance of sport and cultural management as one combined subject-area in which, over recent years, new synergies and challenges have emerged. Throughout the countries of Europe, terms such as identity, integration and cultural representation are being discussed extensively, thus revealing the increasing importance of sport and culture as integral parts of social encounters and intercultural exchanges. The Summer School reveals the historic lines of connection between the two, stemming from ancient times and continuing into the 21st century, which raise questions of the relationships between identity, the human body, and social representation. This also includes the impacts and challenges which make up sport and culture management. Organisational aspects as well as the historical, economic, and political issues that influence the staging of the various events will be discussed.

AMA conference 2010

Royal Armouries Museum and Saviles Hall, Leeds UK

20-22 July 2010

The age of mass collaboration is upon us and critical trends are turning the world of work on its head. The social, interconnected world (on- and offline) in which we live is opening up new opportunities and new ways of engaging with the public.

It's simply no longer enough to create the most persuasive message, send it to the right target audience and expect them to make a rational decision to attend.

At the European Museum of the Year Award Ceremony on Saturday 22nd of May, in front of an audience of more than 160 museum professionals from 22 European countries, the Ozeaneum Museum in Stralsund, Germany was announced as the winner of the European Museum of the Year Award for 2010.

This groundbreaking book brings together a collection of essays on the revolution taking place in museums around the world as they look anew at the ways communities are represented. It highlights a fundamental shift occurring in 21st century museums: how they confront existing assumptions about people, and the pioneering ways they work with specific groups to narrate oral histories, tell ancestral stories and keep memories from the past alive.

The philosophical thread, woven through each essay, expresses a rejection of popular claims that minority people are necessarily silent, neglected and ignorant of the processes of representation. This book showcases contemporary museums as spaces of dialogue, collaboration, reclamation and storytelling. It acknowledges the radical efforts many museums and communities make to actively engage with and overthrow existing misconceptions, on the important subject of race and ethnicity.

Turner prize-winner Richard Wright and nominees Roger Hiorns and Mike Nelson, Britains representative at the 2011 Venice Biennale, share a common bond beyond their recent honoursboth are participating artists in the Artist Pension Trust (APT).

APT is an art investment fund with a twistthe artists contribute the works themselves, and the trust is structured to provide future income for the artists. Now in its seventh year, it has a global portfolio of 1,100 artists and a collection of more than 4,500 works, which it values at $45m. This year, its lending and exhibition division, APT curatorial services, will mount five exhibitions in Bahrain, Beijing, Berlin, Cairo and at Bard College in upstate New York.

What does the term social entrepreneurship actually mean? Broadly speaking, it describes situations in which business principles are used to further social good. Many artists and organizations working in the arts and culture sector have already made use of social entrepreneurship with great success. However, while they have been systemically integrated into the strategies of organizations working in issue areas such as international development, poverty reduction, and public health, their potential has not been fully realized in the arts and culture sector.

Social entrepreneurship, or social enterprise, is a general term that applies to any individual or group that uses business principles to both further social good and generate profits. Social entrepreneurs both individually and within the context of organizations work to develop targeted to solutions to specific, often localized, social problems. Many of the major advances in social entrepreneurship have been in the field of international development, where small-scale, highly targeted projects can have far-reaching impact for communities in developing countries.

The conference will be organized on June 24 and 25, 2010 in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and held in Old Arena - a club for culture and information 2015.

The Ministry of Culture held a teleconference with representatives of government, financial institutions and major creative enterprises on April 14 to encourage financial support for Chinas emerging cultural industry.

The Ministry, along with the CPC Publicity Department, Peoples Bank of China, Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), General Administration of Press and Publication, China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) and China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), were following up a March 19 instruction to the financial sector to provide financial support to the cultural industry.

Many people will work without pay in the arts. But are they being exploited?

THERE'S no lack of people lining up to take on unpaid or poorly paid roles volunteering their time for arts organisations. With the possible exception of charities, and community groups, very few areas of life are more reliant on voluntary labour than the arts. But what responsibility does the arts have to the unpaid? Put simply: are interns exploited?

The objective of this consultation is to gather views on various issues impacting the cultural and creative industries in Europe, from business environment to the need to open up a common European space for culture, from capacity building to skills development and promotion of European creators on the world stage. The responses to the consultation will inform the Commission and help it ensure that EU programmes and policies involving cultural and creative industries are "fit for purpose".

Building audiences for a performing arts organization is a multi-faceted endeavor. But theres one common thread that, to me, is indispensable for helping the performing arts organization create and maintain connections with its audience, its staff and volunteers, and the general community within which it operates.

That common factor may be described as personalizing the performing arts group, whether theatre company, dance company, jazz trio, cabaret troupe, or chamber music ensemble. Personalizing involves putting a face on the company; it is being mindful of the vital role of communications in everything from your box office staffs interface with ticket buying public to keeping your audiences informed of news about your organization and having your staff members participate in other cultural and service associations in the community.

A team of Oliver Wyman consultants applied cutting-edge customer-based strategy methodologies to find out what drives symphony concertgoers to return or churn. They found a sobering trend:

* 90% of first-time concertgoers never return

* 60% of occasional concertgoers dont purchase tickets the following season

Now, symphony orchestras across the US are applying solutions from the Audience Growth Initiative (aka "Churn Report") to entice first-timers back and develop a new generation of orchestra supporters.

A bill to let counties use sales tax money to help struggling arts groups has had trouble getting traction in the legislature, despite broad support. The measure failed to make last weeks Crossover Day deadline, meaning it could die if not attached to another bill already approved by the House. That would be only the latest blow to the arts in metro Atlanta and Georgia, which are feeling the pain of a weak economy in many ways.

Public arts funding is being slashed. Corporate and foundation giving is down as businesses salve their own red-ink wounds or refocus giving on social causes. Attendance is off for many arts groups. Layoffs are up. A few organizations, such as the Atlanta Opera, are presenting less of their art to avoid production costs they cant afford.

In November 2009, Technology in the Arts launched a survey of arts and cultural organizations learn about their ticketing needs and to gauge how well current ticketing tools are meeting those needs.

Nearly 900 arts and cultural professionals completed the survey to evaluate their satisfaction with over 50 ticketing software tools.

Social media tools are fun, hip, sexy, cheap and easy to use. Its not too surprising that arts organizations are quick to embrace the ever-evolving world of social media. While I believe a social media presence is almost always necessary, when I work with an arts organization or get asked a question about social media tools, my first response is to ask some key questions such as:

Who is your target customer?

What is your current message?

What are your competitors doing?

Are you trying to reach a new market segment?

What are you trying to accomplish?

PRACTICS. See Mobile See Practical is a 3-year project coordinated by the Finnish Theatre Information Centre which joined forces with ten other cultural organisations from six EU-countries with the aim to facilitate the provision of information about EU cross-border mobility in the cultural sector.