1,720,963 research outputs found

    University Collections:Managing the artistic heritage behind the University ivory tower

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    The management of university museums and collections has been an issue for decades as they have played a crucial role in supporting the three missions of the higher education system: research, teaching and making academia’s resources available for public use. In this paper, we focus on the Italian case, where the enhancement, management and accessibility of university collections are all part of the evaluation system for universities. Our aim in this work is to propose a reconnaissance of university art collections in Italy and investigate the three managerial challenges defined by the Council of Europe: accessibility, financial sustainability and communication of university collections. The findings show that Italian universities hold an enormous cultural heritage, mainly undervalued, both in terms of number of artworks and in terms of the artworks’ economic value. In addition, Italian managerial approaches show significant critical issues regarding the three managerial challenges

    Balancing artistic and financial performance: is collaborative governance the answer?

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    Purpose: Opera houses have been traditionally publicly financed in many western countries. However, today many opera houses are facing serious financial troubles, due to the recent financial crisis. There is thus a widespread public debate on measures to ensure agency efficiency for performing arts organizations. Focusing on the reform implemented recently in Italy, which submitted opera houses that had severe financial difficulties to a recovery plan and encouraged forms of collaborative governance (CG), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of CG on the performance of the arts sector. Design/methodology/approach: Multiple case studies are used, on longitudinal data from multiple sources over a period of up to five years, in order to triangulate the narrative of financial and artistic performance and ensure trustworthiness. The study thus spans the period before the Bray Law came into force (2013) and covers the entire period in which recovery plans were implemented. Findings: The analysis explores how opera houses are building sustainability for themselves and the community in terms of financial and artistic performance through CG. Various forms of CG adopted yielded positive results. Furthermore, more robust forms of CG generated better performance, especially from a financial point of view. Originality/value: This paper adds to the limited knowledge of CG in the non-profit sector by bridging the fields of agency performance and CG. It discusses how the introduction of forms of CG can build up long-term sustainability, solving the dilemma of how to achieve financial equilibrium without compromising artistic quality, focusing on the case of opera houses, which are notably affected by Baumol’s cost disease

    Financing Sustainability in the Arts Sector: The Case of the Art Bonus Public Crowdfunding Campaign in Italy

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    This paper addresses the conditions that can facilitate the long-term effectiveness of civic crowdfunding fundraising strategies. While previous studies have provided a broad picture of the possible conditions for fostering effective fundraising strategies, most have considered the implications of fundraising only for management or only for cultural policy, neglecting an integrated approach that contemplates the needs of both. Thus, this work integrates cultural management and cultural policy perspectives by discussing a specific exploratory case study: Art Bonus, a cultural patronage tax incentive strategy introduced by the Italian government in 2014, which also includes civic crowdfunding features. To the best of our knowledge, Art Bonus is the first national civic crowdfunding platform supported by a national government. As an innovative and unique platform, its analysis is particularly relevant. This work analyzes the system’s functioning and the results obtained in its first years of operation (2014–2016) by accessing the public database relating to the donations transited through the platform. While the initiative effectively channeled more fundraising resources into the cultural sector, the results also illustrate potential points for improving such a system

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Managing and enhancing the intangible heritage: the experience of “Literary Parks”

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    In recent years, the concept of cultural heritage has changed to include artistic, archaeological, architectural and environmental heritages, including intangible forms of these. The potential of intangible heritage has yet to be fully exploited, and there are many opportunities for its enhancement and protection still to explore. The meaning of intangible heritage in social development, and its social and cultural potential is described through a case study of the Literary Park circuit in Italy. The Italian experience shows that there is potential in setting up networks in remote areas, and in the process of recognizing and enhancing the intangible heritage of a country. Heritage, particularly intangible heritage, is an alternative approach to promoting a sense of belonging and active participation in a community. It can attract financial resources and boost social development of the local cultural ecosystem. Surveys and interviews are used to assess the limits and potential as well as strengths and weaknesses of Literary Parks

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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