I am Chris Jeffries, the Fine Arts Guide at The Mining Company. Background on
my site is included below. I am preparing an article for mid January on how art
museums augment their collections. I am asking museum personnel to respond to
the following questions:

1. How do museums go about deciding how they will augment their collections?
2. By what process are these decisions made, ie by committee, donors, or some
other selections process?
3. How do museums decide which parts of their collections should be expanded,
which artists to collect, and which particular artworks they would like to
have?
4. How do museums go about deciding what their yearly budget will be and how
much they can pay for a particular piece?
5. What is the average budget for a museum collecting activities for a medium
sized US city?
6. How do museums identify contemporary artists they would like to collect?
7. Are museum people now surfing the net to locate new artists? What kinds of
things do they look for?

If you have information to contribute to this article, you will be given credit
for your response. If you would prefer not to have your name mentioned, that is
fine too.

Please forward your responses by email to: [log in to unmask]

Background: I write weekly feature articles on a variety of topics in fine arts
for my Internet site "Fine Arts on the Internet at The Mining Company," at
<http://finearts.miningco.com>. I also maintain a large collection of Internet
links in 25 sub-categories in fine arts. I try to make most of my articles
educational and informational. There are also several pages on Self-Promotion
for fine artists. My current article is on a topic of web site preparation,
however, this is the exception rather than the rule. Generally, I display
articles of interest to a very broad range of artists, art enthusiasts, art
educators, and museum personnel. Some of these previous articles can be seen at
<http://finearts.miningco.com/mpreviss.htm> where they are listed
chronologically, and are also listed by subject at
<http://finearts.miningco.com/mpreviss2.htm>
Chris Jeffries
Fine Arts Guide at the Mining Company
<[log in to unmask]>