Computers and Arts Management deals with the impact of information technology on the management of one small but important sector of creative activity. It has been produced by a Working Party established in 1981 on the recommendation of the Gulbenkian Foundation’s Arts Initiative and Money (AIM) Advisory Committee which seeks to assist arts organisations to achieve better management and use of resources. The Working Party’s brief was to investigate the potential use of computers in small arts organisations, but its recommendations are relevant to arts organisations of all sizes.

The Working Party concluded that the needs of arts organisations are sufficiently specialised to make software development necessary in order to realise the full potential of computers. This report, therefore, contains an outline description of a system designed to meet these needs, which is presented as a discussion document. The report is to be discussed at a series of conferences around the country where the proposed advantages and disadvantages of computers and the merits of the particular system proposed in the report can be examined. If it is favourably received, the system might be developed incorporating suggestions form the conferences in ways discussed in the final chapter of the report. It is hoped the report will be a valuable source of information and guidance for people in the arts who are considering how they might apply information technology within their organisations.

Iwan Williams is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Studies at Brighton Polytechnic.