Posted by Anne Green on December 24, 1996 at 09:00:19:
Unprecedented Funding Initiative Launched to Empower
Arts and Cultural Institutions to Use the Internet as a Resource
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Benton Foundation recently announced the nation's first funding initiative that will provide community access to the arts on the Internet at sites in all 50 states as well as propel artists and nonprofit arts organizations online by helping them to become effective information providers on the World Wide Web. This new $1 million initiative, called Open Studio: The Arts Online, is an unprecedented collaboration between the NEA and the Benton Foundation to help nonprofit arts organizations and artists go online, increase the arts and cultural presence on the Internet, expand the online arts audience, and provide public Internet access at arts and community institutions. The project will serve as a "national laboratory" and is designed to periodically assess the changing needs of arts organizations and artists and the evolving state of networked communication and technology. The Open Studio website also serves as a public clearinghouse for project information, iincluding a project description and status reports.
Open Studio is an integral part of an overall effort by the NEA to extend its public outreach and serve the arts and the public more effectively through the Internet. In April, the Arts Endowment launched its own Web site at arts.endow.gov. The site includes a monthly magazine, a guide to the Arts Endowment, and an art resource center. The Benton Foundation, dedicated to protecting the public interest in the digital age, has long been a proponent for providing noncommercial public space in the new communications environment. The foundation's work ranges from published work on connecting schools and public opinion research on libraries to national policy summits on communications policy and practices in the public interest and the creation of a communications hub to link children's advocates. More information about Benton, including publications and cyber resource pages, can be found at www.benton.org.
The initiative consists of two funding components:
1) Offering Free Community Access to the Internet - More than 100 arts organizations and culturally-oriented community centers (2 in every state and territory) will receive a matching award of $2,000 to $4,000 to set up public access points to the Internet. Through this initiative, members of the public who are interested in accessing the Internet can receive personal assistance helping them learn how to browse the Web and access its cultural resources.
2) Helping Artists & Arts Organizations Become Effective Information Providers on the Web - Ten institutions with existing telecommunications resources, such as libraries, universities, and community telecommunications centers, will each receive up to $35,000 to serve as mentors to ten regional cultural organizations and ten local artists, teaching them how to become effective information providers on the World Wide Web. The trainees will then mentor another organization or artist within a year of completing their own training. By the autumn of 1997, this program will generate an Internet presence for 200 arts organizations and artists with 200 more in training.
Fourteen sites have already been selected as pilots and the remaining sites will be selected through a competitive process, with awards announced in March 1997. The proposal deadline for the remaining sites is January 15, 1996. For more information about applying for site awards, send a blank email to mentorrfp@benton.org (for mentor awards) or accessrfp@benton.org (for access awards), visit the Open Studio Web site at www.openstudio.org, or call the Project Coordinator, Anne Green, at (202) 638-5770.