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2000, 77 pages. NEA, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 20506-0001, 202-682-5400.

In 1999, Bill Ivey, as a part of his reevaluation of the NEA's funding strategies, convened a series of ten colloquia to discuss how arts institutions can more effectively serve their communities. Forty-one speakers participated; about half are well-known to GIA members and the other half included experts from intersecting fields such as advertising, entertainment, Internet services, and charitable gift funds.

April 28-30, 2002, Asheville, North Carolina

Last year when RAND released The Performing Arts in a New Era, (Performing Arts) the prediction that times were going to be particularly difficult for mid-sized performing arts organizations was widely quoted. It was prominent in press coverage of the report and quickly embraced as a fact by grantseekers and foundation colleagues. I was curious to return to Performing Arts and the conditions it cites for organizations in the middle, to see how they apply to readings of recent field reports for different performing arts disciplines.

Fall 2001, $15 per year, 80 pages. Published by the MIT Press for the Society for Organizational Learning. MIT Press Journals, Five Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, 617-253-2889, journals-orders@mit.edu. Society for Organizational Learning, contact@SoLonline.org.

I rarely pick up books or journals about business management, but my trusted co-editor suggested Reflections to me on the grounds that several GIA members have forwarded intriguing articles from its pages. I decided to take the plunge.

November 2001, 24 pages. Working Group on International Collaboration in the Arts, Arts International, 251 Park Avenue South, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10010-7302, 212-674-9744, 212-674-9092 fax.

On November 12, 2000, a headline on the front page of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution read, "Study finds Atlanta arts community trailing peers." A full-page story in Section A followed. This one headline challenged the city's cherished self-assessment as "cultural jewel of the South" and quietly affirmed the suspicions of many of its artists and cultural workers.

This is the story about the headline, the study, and the volunteer efforts of an incorporated ad hoc group that calls itself the Atlanta Arts Think Tank and that commissioned the landmark study.

Meetings are big business. Or, in other words, talk is not cheap. An economic impact study by Deloitte & Touche LLP demonstrated that conventions, expositions, and meetings generated $82 billion in total direct spending in 1994, supporting 1.57 million jobs.1 Meetings of associations and membership organizations, as opposed to corporate-sponsored events, account for the lion's share of this spending (68 percent). Many of these associations serve the arts and culture.

2001, 166 pages. National Arts Journalism Program, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The cultural landscape of Maine is as rich and diverse as its natural landscape, although it is less well known. Recent initiatives have brought attention to the arts and culture of this rural state that is home to 1.4 million residents and covers two million acres, 2,000 miles of rugged (and increasingly developed) shoreline, and a vast area of working forest, farms, and urban settings not unlike its northern NewEngland neighbors.