This ArtsJournal Forum, funded by the Wallace Foundation (which also commissioned the RAND report), brings together 11 artists, arts administrators, advocates, researchers and critics to discuss the main contention of the RAND report: that a better case can be made for the arts by focussing on intrinsic effects.

Arts Extension Service (AES) at University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA) has new partners for the 26th Annual Summer Institute for Arts Management in June 20-22, 2005.

The City of Nantes, On The Move, IETM and Relais Culture Europe organize a colloquium in Nantes in collaboration with ERBAN on 23-24 June 2005, on the subject of Interactive Culture: Culture and Online Information

Two days of discussion will focus on the encounter between the cultural domain and digital culture and will question if the cultural operators and resource centers are lagging behind in the exploitation of new possibilities.

Within the Annual Conference 2005 of ENCATC, 60 students from all over Europe (and some from farther) will get together and will deal with this topic. On the weekend in the beginning of June, the students will meet approx. 250 teachers and professional from all over the world for an exchange and a process of mutual learning. The core of the students' meeting should be the exchange between students; exchange of experiences, of knowledge, of contacts, of projects and interests. The magic word for this weekend should be interaction. The students will not be recipients but participants; they take part and are involved in the process going on. The program with workshops and lectures will just give a frame that will be filled with the ideas and with the motivation of the participants. As the topic borders, boundaries, limits, is very wide spread, we do not expect to cover all aspects of it, we rather want to get closer to it with this, in a way experimental approach, and to become aware of the different aspects of it.

The fourth OZeCulture conference of culture, creative industries and ebusiness took place on 7 and 8 April 2005 at the Byron Community and Cultural Centre, 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay, on the north coast of New South Wales.

The conference featured Australian and international keynote speakers on a broad range of topics related to the latest developments, opportunities and challenges for creative industry practitioners.

The RESEO Database was developed within the framework of the project "Why/How Opera Education in Europe Today?", which was carried out by 17 European Opera Houses and the Universities of Leeds (GB), Münster (G) and Oldenburg (G) from 1 September 2000 to 30 August 2003. The project, which was supported by the Culture 2000 framework programme of the European Commission, explored many aspect of current opera education practice including the roles of artists, teachers, and opera educations relation to the future of opera.

The Library Project runs from January until March 2005. It is such a development project of library activities of Cemeti Art Foundation (CAF). The project is mainly to set up a network among alternative libraries, specifically in the area of Yogyakarta. It involves their managers and librarians of different background.

In Jerusalem Yad Ben Zvi is engaging in a gigantic effort to preserve the heritage of the Land of the City and the traditions of Oriental and Sephardic Jewish communities. Its work is immensely popular with the general public and earned it the prestigious Israel Prize but has irked some at the academic community which claim it is not up to par as far as academic standards are concerned.
Is it a path-finder or just a popular science institute?

The 2005 edition of The Directories of American Art Galleries are now available.

In brief, The Directories of American Art Galleries are catalogues listing thousands of American Fine Art Establishments and pertinent contact information per each Establishment. The Directories list ONLY Art Establishments throughout the USA. Art Establishments in more than 4,600 American cities and in every state are listed. Most entries list the E-mail address(es), Website Address(es), Street Address, Phone Numbers (includes Toll Free Numbers when available), Fax Number, and the name of the Contact Person (Curator, Manager, Owner, etc.). Thousands of Art Establishments are accompanied by a description of the sort of art represented or exhibited, the services offered, year established, and any information that might be useful or of interest to people involved in the art world.

From April 21 to June 10, 2005, we make a user survey to get a better imagination, what our readers and users expect from our internet services and products. We would be happy about your participation to have the widest range of opinions, answers and user statistics. The results will be published and used for our upcoming relaunch of both the newsletter and the online portal.

Trolley Song. Beginning this summer, tourists will find it easier and cheaper to visit some of Chicago's cultural attractions thanks to a $600,000 federal grant that will pay for a new free trolley shuttle, running three different routes. For the next two years, the shuttle will operate from the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, through Labor Day, as well as the two weeks of Christmas, the Thanksgiving weekend and the two weeks of spring break. It connects stations serving the suburbs with such cultural institutions as the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum, the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Chicago Historical Society, and Navy Pier, the home of the Chicago Shakespeare Festival.

Sponsorship, which has a budget of million dollars in the developing world, is becoming a business act that benefits both sponsorship oriented organizations and the companies. Sponsor companies make the investment in order to reach their target market and meet their pre-specified goals in the long term, to contribute to institutionalization process or to motivate their employees.

One of the principles of Buddhism is the idea of detachment that we must consider the importance of detaching ourselves from both our problems and our successes. In other words, we can find balance in our lives and our work if we can maintain a broader perspective. Although I am not a Buddhist myself, I truly appreciate this principle, and find it applicable in my work both as an artist and as an arts manager.
Whether you are an arts manager, an artist, or an arts afficianado, you know that it easy to get caught in what I refer to as the artistic vacuum. This happens when we become so consumed by the creation of our art (or the promotion of it or the appreciation of it) that we find ourselves too narrowly focused, and we lose our perspective.

The EXPO 2005 with the main theme Theme "NATURE'S WISDOM" is a guest for 185 days at Aichi, Japan. During this time from March 25 until September 25 is planned a voluminous program with Entertainment like National Days, Massage Events and Association Programs. In order to promote wide-ranging participation from around the world and to develop the theme of the Exhibition, the main theme will be divided into several sub-themes...

2004 turned out to be probably the most successful year for the Israeli film industry ever. 18 productions were shown on the screen viewed by 1.3 mil. viewers an estimated 13% of the total. This number is twice as big as the number in 2003 although in includes one production "End of the world - left" which drew 460,000 viewers. But even if we disregard it completely the number of cinema viewers grew by some 30%.

Sky and digital channel Artsworld have teamed with arts sponsorship partners English National Opera (ENO) and English National Ballet (ENB) in an extension of their continuing relationships to create a new initiative, 'Culture Connection'...

The choice of Prague as the place to hold the IAMA conference in 2005 is in many respects symbolic. Fifteen years after the restoration of democracy in central Europe and after the recent, considerable expansion of the European Union, the time has come also for IAMA to cross the shadow of the former Iron Curtain.