The arts in England: Developing a survey of attendance,participation and attitudes

Reliable data on attendance, participation and attitudes to the arts are needed by planners, policy makers, arts organisations, those concerned with marketing the arts and researchers.

This chapter describes the development and piloting of a national survey of people's engagement with the arts by the Arts Council of England and the Office for National Statistics. It outlines the main reasons for the development of the survey, presents results from the pilot and compares them with other national and international sources of data.

From the outset, procedures for obtaining feedback on the pilot questionnaire were built into the planning process. The paper discusses respondents’ reactions to the questionnaire, their views on how meaningful the questions were and how well the interview worked. It also explores respondents’ understanding of such terms as ‘the arts’ and ‘public funding’, and how they responded to questions.

The chapter concludes with a summary of the changes made in the light of the pilot and outlines future plans for the survey.     

Access,efficiency and excellence: Measuring non‐economic performance in the English subsidised cultural sector

The requirement to evaluate policies and measure performance in the publicly funded cultural sector in the UK has become increasingly pressing since the early 1980s. This chapter reviews the various attempts to do that. It demonstrates how economic and other quantifiable measures have tended to be emphasised whereas the qualitative aspects of cultural provision, which are more difficult to measure, have tended to be neglected.

The chapter presents the first overview of the subject. It covers developments within what is referred to as the ‘cultural framework’ ‐ the infrastructure associated with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which includes the ‘arts funding framework’. It also looks at developments affecting local authorities’ provision of cultural services.

The chapter draws on various published and unpublished policy documents, and accounts, as well as interviews with individuals involved in the development of performance management in the cultural sector. Their views are presented throughout the chapter to illustrate the points raised.

The chapter opens by examining the history of performance indicators in the sector, and maps the current requirements to measure performance. The second section considers the resistance to measuring the performance of arts organisations and museums. In doing so, it examines critical inheritance of former attempts to measure performance, and the issues raised in relation to current aspirations to do so. The third section presents attitudes to future developments, and is based on speculations by those currently involved in museums, galleries, the arts funding system and the introduction of Best Value as to the kinds of impact that the introduction of performance measurements might have. The fourth and final section draws together a series of observations about the introduction of non‐economic performance in the English subsidised cultural sector.     

‘They shall grow not old’: An analysis of trends in memorialisation based on information held by the UK national inventory of war memorials

This chapter of Cultural Trends discusses ways in which war memorials demonstrate changing cultural or societal trends in the UK through their various forms and functions, and through the evolution of memorialisation itself.

It introduces the UK National Inventory of War Memorials, an archive which was established in 1989 and which records details of memorials throughout the UK. The chapter is based on data and detailed examples taken from the 47,000 records currently input on the archive's database and it explores those records to examine memorials commemorating the Boer Wars, First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, in particular.

The first section considers general issues regarding war memorials in the UK ‐ the ways in which memorial styles have changed, and how these reflect changing attitudes towards those who served in the armed forces in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The second section is about the pragmatics of memorialisation, and focuses on the significance of where memorials are positioned, whether inside or out and within public or private spaces; the increase in secularisation; the geographical spread of memorials; and issues related to urban and rural memorialisation.

The third section considers the evolution of memorials from being a focus for grief for those whose friends and relations’ bodies were not returned, to manifesting veterans groups’ assertions of their identity many years after a conflict. The physical movement of memorials is also covered, ranging from memorials which have been lost or neglected, through to memorials being moved in order to preserve them so that remembrance services can continue. Peaks and troughs of memorialisation through the 20th century are also considered.

To conclude, the fourth section pulls together various threads drawn throughout the chapter, analysing memorials chronologically, geographically, stylistically and in terms of their relative ‘popularity’.     

The funding of professional archaeological practice in England

Professional archaeology in England is funded from a variety of sources. This chapter of Cultural Trends presents research tracing the route by which this has developed, examining and quantifying the sources of funding for professional archaeological practice in 2000. This is the first study to quantify archaeological funding from all sources in the last decade.

Since 1990, governmental planning advice has switched the financial burden of recording archaeological remains from the state to private sources. This has allowed a great expansion of archaeological work to take place, through the requirements of the planning system, and funded from private sources.

While central government funding has remained static (falling in real terms) over the last decade, private ‐ developer ‐ funding has become the norm. It is calculated that approximately £120 million was spent on professional archaeological practice in 2000, with over half of that sum coming from private sources.

This chapter examines and quantifies all the sources of funding for professional archaeology, considering developer funding in detail. Undoubtedly the expansion of developer funding has brought great benefits to professional archaeology, not least in terms of the greater scale of work required, but it has also raised problems, allowing archaeological practice in 2000 to become a weakly regulated, market‐led activity.

Local government, as the regulator of the planning system, has a key role to play. As archaeological services in local government are not maintained on a statutory basis, they are open to budgetary pressures.

The chapter concludes by examining the key issues relating to development and archaeology in the near future, and suggests an alternative approach to funding that might better suit developers, planners and archaeologists alike.     

Book reviews

Zwartjes, Otto, ed. La Sociedad andalusí y sus tradiciones literarias (Foro Hispánico, 7). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.

Brincat, Joseph M. Malta 870–1054: Al‐Himyai's Account and its Linguistic Implications. Malta: Said International Ltd., 1995. 52pp.

Sells, Michael A. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 316 pp., US$18.95 (paperback), US$49.91 (cloth).

Diem, Werner, Arabische Geschäftsbriefe des 10. bis 14. Jahrhunderts aus der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek in Wien (Documents Arabica Antiqua 1), 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995. Textband ix+518pp., Tafelband 76 plates.

Coope, Jessica A. The Martyrs of Cordoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. xvii+113 pp., US$ 25 (cloth).

Edwards, John. Religion and Society in Spain, c.1492 (Variorum Collected Studies Series: CS 520). Aldershot and Brookfield: Variorum, 1996. x+351 pp., US$ 97.00 (cloth).

Tolan, John Victor, ed. Medìeval Christian Perceptions of Islam. A Book of Essays (Garland Medieval Casebooks, Volume 10). New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1996. xxi+414 pp., US$60.00 (cloth).     

Book reviews

Galmés de Fuentes, Aivara. Toponimia de Alicante (La oronimia). Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 1990.91 pp., index of names; paperback.

Arié, Rachel. L'Occident musulman au Bas Moyen Age. Paris: De Boccard, 1992.131 pp.

Lev, Yaacov. State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Arab History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, 1) Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991. x+217 pp. Hfl. 110.‐

Melville, Charles and Ubaydli, Ahmad, eds. Christians and Moors in Spain, vol. III: Arabic Sources (711–1501). Warminsten Aris & Phillips, 1992. xviii+202 pp. £35 (cloth), £11.95 (paperback).

López Baralt, Luce. Islam in Spanish Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present. Leiden and San Juan: E.J. Brill and Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1992.323pp. Hfl. 145.‐

Baer, Eva. Ayyubid metalwork with Christian images. (Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture / Supplements to Muqarnas, 4). Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989.55pp. 128 ills. (b/w). Hfl. 65.‐

Stroumsa, Sarah. Dāwūd Ibn Al‐Maqammis's Twenty Chapters (^cIshrūn Maqāla) (Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval, XIII). Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989. 320pp. Hfl. 135.‐

Cassoia, Arnold (Ed). The Biblioteca Vallicelliana Regole per la Lingua Maltese. Malta: Said International, 1992. xlviii+193 pp.     

Book reviews

Bazzana, André; Cressier, Patrice; and Guichard, Pierre. Les châteaux ruraux d'al‐Andalus. Histoire et archéologie des husūn du sud‐est de l'Espagne. Preface by Pierre Toubert (Série Archéologie, XI). Madrid: Publications de la Casa de Velázquez, 1988. 326pp; illustrations (plates, maps, tables); bibliography, index.

Tāha, CAbdulwāhid Dhanūn. The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain (Exeter Arabic and Islamic Series, 3). London: Routledge, 1989. xiv + 280pp; £49.50.

Leaman, Oliver. Averroes and his Philosophy Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. 204pp.; £25.

Mas^cūdî. The Meadows of Cold: the Abbasids. Ed. & tr. P. Lunde & C. Stone. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. 469 pp., 2 maps; £30.

Sirat, Colette. La philosophie juive médiévale en terre d'Islam. Paris: Presses du CNRS, 1988. 278 pp.

Epalza, Míkel de and others. Baños Arabes en el país Valenciano. [Valencia], Generalitat Valenciana: Consellería de Cultura, Educado i Ciència, 1989.157 pp., plates, figures., maps (unnumbered).

Waines, David In a Caliph's Kitchen.Medieval Arabic Cooking for the Modern Gourmet. London: Riad el‐Rayyes Books, 1989. 112pp., many illustrations; £14.

Abed, Shukri B. Aristotelian Logic and the Arabic Language in Alfārābi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. xxv+201pp., two appendices, bibliography, index.

Meyerson, Mark D. The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between Coexistence and Crusade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. xi + 372 pp.

Zacour, Norman. Jews and Saracens in the Consilia of Oldradus de Ponte. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1990. x+144pp., index; paperback.     

Book reviews

De Epalza, Míkel. Jésus Otage: Juifs, chrétiens et musulmans en Espagne (VI ^e‐XVII ^e s.(. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1987. 238pp.

Rubiera Mata, María Jesús. Bibliografia de la Literatura Hispano‐Arabe. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 1988. 75pp.

Bernabé Pons, Luis F. El cántlco Islámico del morisco hispano‐tunecino Taybili. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1988. 275pp.

Smith, Colin. Christians and Moors in Spain, 1: 711–1150. War‐minster: Arls and Phillips, 1988. xii+179pp., 2 maps; £19.95 hardback; £8.25 paperback.

López García, Bernabé. Política y movimientos sociales en el Mágreb. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas et Siglo XXI de España, 1988. xlv+207pp.

Esposlto, John L. Islam, The Straight Path. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. x+230pp., index; paperback.

Sharq Al‐Andalus: Estudios Arabes Ed. Mikel de Epalza. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante. 2 (1985) 310pp.; 3 (1986) 296pp.

Powers, David S. Studies In Qur'ān and Hadith: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1986. xiii + 263pp.

Abun‐Nasr, Jamil M. A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.XVI + 455pp., 6 maps; £42.50 hardback; £17.50 paperback.

Thomas, C. G. (editor). Paths from Ancient Greece. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988. 206pp, HF1.58.     

Book reviews

Mir, Mustansir. Verbal Idioms of the Qur'ān. (Michigan Series on the Middle East, no. I). Ann Arbon University of Michigan, 1989. xxi+378 pp., glossary; US$ 21.95 (paperback).

Fiotini, Stanley and Mallia‐Milanes, Victor, eds. Malta. A Case Study in International Cross‐Currents. Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on the History of the Central Mediterranean held at the University of Malta, 13–17 December 1989. Msida: Malta University Publications, 1991. xxii+300pp. 17 plates, 8 text figures. M£5.

Bellamy, James A. ed. Studies in Near Eastern Culture and History in Memory of Ernest T. Abdel‐Massih. (Michigan Series on the Middle East, no. 2). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1990. x+225pp.

Dajani‐Shakeel, Hadia and Messier, Ronald A. eds. The Jihād and its Times, dedicated to Andrew Stefan Ehrenkreutz. Ann Arbor: Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, The University of Michigan, 1991. iii+135pp.

Minorités religieuses dans l'Espagne médiévale. (Nos. 63–64 of Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée). Aix‐en‐Provence: Édisud, 1992. FF 160.

Burckhardt, Titus. Fez, City of Islam. Translated by William Stoddart. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1992. 175pp. 58pl.

Jayyusi, Salma Kh., ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Leiden: Brill, 1992. (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Erste Abteilung, The Near and Middle East, zwolfter Band), xix+1098 pp. 6 maps; 27 pages of colour and black and white illustrations. Hfl. 450.

Stetkevych, Jaroslav. The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasib. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. xii+326pp.

Corbin, Henry. History of Islamic Philosophy. London: Kegan Paul International/Islamic Publications for The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 1993. xvii+445pp. £55.

Burrell, David B., C.S.C. Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. xi, 225 pp. Cloth $29.95; paper $13.95.

Köprülü, Mehmed Fuad. Islam in Anatolia after the Turkish Invasion. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993. xviii, 141pp.

Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre‐Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual (Myth and Poetics. Gen. ed. Gregory Nagy). Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993. xvi, 334pp.; appendix of Arabic texts.

L'Expulsió dels Moriscos. Conseqüències en el món islàmic i el món cristià. Sant Caries de la Ràpita 5–9 de desembre de 1990. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura, 1994. 418pp.

Agius, Dionisius A. and Hitchcock, Richard, eds. The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe (Folia Scholastica Mediterranean Reading: Ithaca Press, 1994. 167pp. £30.

Davidson, Olga M. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings (Myth and Poetics. Gen. ed. Gregory Nagy). Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994. xi, 197pp.     

Radio audience research: Challenging the ‘gold standard’

Since 1992, the BBC and the commercial radio sector have carried out radio audience research using a jointly agreed methodology ‐ one producing data that until recently enjoyed the status of a ‘gold standard’. In 2000, increasingly strident calls for this human recall methodology to be replaced by new, electronic forms of audience measurement led to the breakdown of a consensus that had served much of the industry well in concealing legitimate concerns about reliability and appropriateness.

This chapter sets current radio audience research in both historical and international contexts, and examines the recent controversy over different methodologies that apparently produce contrasting results. It uses data produced by a number of approaches to highlight inconsistencies that, if not resolved, may damage radio's credibility among advertisers, regulators and industry observers alike.

It describes the very public dispute that led to the formation of the breakaway Little Guys Radio Association by the former Sun editor, Kelvin MacKenzie ‐ and in response, research by Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd into competing systems of electronic measurement. In doing so, the chapter asks fundamental questions about what constitutes listening to the radio, and whether mere exposure ‐ if not legitimised by recall ‐ is sufficient to justify the industry's claims on the revenues it derives from licence fees and advertisers.     

Archives: A statistical overview

This chapter of Cultural Trends examines the increasing use of statistical data to support evidence‐based management in the archival domain. After explaining how archives are managed and used, it reviews the available sources of data and evidence about the work of the domain and its contribution to the cultural agenda.

Because there are no official requirements for data collection, much of the work on archival statistics has been voluntary, informal and, until now, uncoordinated. As a result, there are no comprehensive sources of data and no common statistics spanning the whole range of archives services. In their absence, this chapter explores the make‐up of the archival network and uses the available statistical data on core service elements as the basis for postulating averages for use as models for an attempted overview of the domain. While the limitations of this approach necessarily warrant caution over the results ‐ which are described as tentative ‐ it is proposed that with further refinement such a model could form the basis for future headline statistics of key archival inputs and outputs.

The remainder of the chapter looks in detail at evidence and trends in archives, with a particular focus on usage (user profiles, motivation for using archives and patterns of use etc); collections management and stewardship (archive holdings and preservation activities); and impact. The section on impact takes an overview of the archival contribution to the public policy agenda with regard to social, economic and learning issues.

In conclusion, the chapter reflects that too much of the previous effort has gone into measuring the resource base. It is argued that the future emphasis should be on using the available data to provide evidence of impact ‐ showing how archives can and do ‘make a difference’ in the broader cultural agenda. A final table illustrates the views of users on what archives contribute to society, highlighting the potential for creative partnerships between archives and other cultural service providers.     

Book reviews

Varela Gomes, Rosa. Cerâmicas Muçulmanas do Castelo de Silves. Silves: Museu Municipal de Arqueologia, 1988 (XELB, 1). 294pp, numerous figs, and pls.

Rubiera i Mata, María Jesús.Introducció a la literatura hispaho‐àrab (Col. ecció Xarc AI‐Andalus, l).Alicante: Universitat d'Alacant, 1989. 117pp.

Guichard, Pierre. L'Espagne et la Sicile musulmanes aux XI^e et XII^e siècles. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1990. 232pp., figures, maps. FF. 138.‐ ‘ .

Lozano Cámara, Indalecio. Tres tratados árabes sobre el Cannabis Indica. Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Arabe, 1990. 220pp.

Powell, James M., ed. Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100–1300. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 221pp.

Actas del Simposio Internacional sobre la Ciuidad Islámica. Ponencias y Comunicaciones. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico de la Diputación Provincial, 1991. 474pp.

Neugebauer, Otto. Abu Shaker's “Chronography”: A treatise of the 13th Century on Chronological, Calendrical and Astronomical Matters, written by a Christian Arab, preserved in Ethiopie (Õsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philos.‐Histor. Klasse: Sitzungsberichte, 498).Wien: Ö.A.W., 1988. 198pp., 7pl. OS 350.‐.

Arbel, Benjamin, Hamilton, Bernard and Jacoby, David, eds. Latins and Creeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204. London: Frank Cass, 1989. 245pp. £18.     

Non-Descender and All-Cap Arabic Writing

Contrary to the common belief of Arabic language users that the Arabic writing system has descenders as an inherent quality, some historical examples demonstrate that there were some artistic attempts to create non-descender, all-cap calligraphic systems, but they have never been studied as a phenomenon. This article draws attention to the existence of these examples, and analyses and classifies them according to their form.

The article begins with an analysis of the current Arabic writing system in terms of descenders, differentiating between artistic and functional writing, defining the need for harmonious balance in artistic writing, and demonstrating that descenders do disrupt the balance in Arabic writing, which could be considered as an ascender-system.

Then, historical examples of the non-descender system are introduced, categorised into four visual stages, and the descender handling for each stage is described; all-capital letter examples are then introduced.

Finally, some historical texts describing the beauty of calligraphy in this specific system of writing are analysed.

Abbreviations: MET: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org; LACMA: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, www.lacma.org; No. : Accession Number     

Book reviews

^cAbd al‐Malik b. Habib. Kitāb al‐Ta'rij (La historia). Edición y estudio por Jorge Aguadé. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas & Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Arabe, 1991 (Fuentes Arabico‐Hispanas, 1). 163 + 224 pp. [Arabic title: Kltāb al‐Ta'tikh]

Kedar, Benjamin Z., ed. The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London: Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, Israel Exploration Society and Variorum 1992. 368 pp., 12 plates; $74.75 (cloth).

Köprülü, Mehmed Fuad. The Seljuks of Anatolia: Their History and Culture According to Local Muslim Sources. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1992. xi +101 pp., $22.00 (cloth).

Cameron, Averil and Conrad, Lawrence I., eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Papers in the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam). Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1992. xiv + 428pp., 12 plates; $29.25 (cloth).

Vereno, Ingolf. Studien zum ältesten alchemistischen Schrifttum. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992 (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 155). 414pp.

Tolan, John. Petrus Alfonsi and his Medieval Readers. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1993. xv + 288pp., $34.95 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994. 281 pp., $19.95 (paper), $49.95 (cloth).

Menocal, María Rosa. Shards of Love: Exile and the Origins of the Lyric. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994. xv + 295pp., $34.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper).

Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al‐Hallāj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated and edited by Herbert Mason. Abridged edition, Bollingen Series XCVIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xxxi + 293pp.

Viguera Molins, Maria Jesús. El Islam en Aragón. Saragossa: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, 1995 (Colección “Mariano de Pano y Ruata”, 9), 174 pp., 182 ills. in colour, maps, diagrams, charts etc No price stated.     

UK museums: Safe and sound?

The new millennium finds UK museums confronting change in their markets and a new political environment.

Recent research has shown that the museum market is static. Sustainability may be difficult for many, with only those that are small and run by volunteers escaping financial difficulties. Alongside these market factors, and following the election of the Labour government, museums are being expected to confront new challenges. While much government policy continues the thrust of the previous administration ‐ especially the focus on the national museums and galleries ‐ there have been some distinctive shifts, especially in respect of admission charges. Besides devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, an increasingly important English regional agenda has developed, in which museums are expected to play a significant role.

Other influences have also had a considerable impact, such as the advent of Best Value, which requires museums funded by local councils to demonstrate their efficiency and effectiveness, and the National Lottery's significant investment in museum capital projects. While this has created some exciting new projects, it has also added to museums’ running costs at a time when market conditions are difficult. Additionally, limited opportunities for employees to progress and develop, and uncompetitive pay, make museums an unattractive career choice, thereby depriving them of the talent that will be needed to meet the public's changing needs.

All these issues provide a reason for central government to understand better the issues faced by the museum sector as a whole, and regional museums and galleries in particular. Without such national guidance, and opportunities for strategic change and rationalisation, museums may close in a disordered way, and their collections lost. In this way, the legacy of this generation to the next may be in danger.     

The changing shape of the book: From cultural evolution to technological revolution

Electronic media would appear to offer the prime forms of communication for the future. Television, the internet, the mobile phone and any number of other innovations present an apparently overwhelming threat to the continuation of the paper‐based media with which most of the adult community is familiar.

The book, in particular, would seem an anachronism. Its production methods, its distribution systems, the physical entity itself, belong not even to the century just finished but to an earlier era altogether. It finds its provenance in a mediaeval technology, its purpose in a society that could accept a pedestrian form of communication, well suited to sharing the printed word with the few who could read it and afford it.

And yet the market for the conventional book remains buoyant. Statistics indicate decline in neither the number of titles published nor sales revenues.

In fact, the new media are indeed impinging on the book market but more slowly than might be imagined. The technologies which have brought us screen‐based devices and telephonic communication have also brought dramatic improvements in the speed and economics of book manufacturing and are beginning to offer highly competitive solutions to both the production and the distribution of conventional books.

This chapter begins with a look ahead to the alternatives shapes of the book of the future. It then accounts for the continuing presence of the conventional book in this scenario by briefly tracing the development of an ancient craft which has evolved through technological innovation into a sophisticated production process which transformed the economics of production.

These technological and economic changes in conventional book manufacturing are set against the advantages and challenges of new media to show how all future forms of the book have a competing place in the market.     

Book reviews

Takeshita, Masataka. Ibn ^cArabi's Theory of the Perfect Man and Its Place in the History of Islamic Thought. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1987 (Studia Culturae Islamicae, 32). iii + 182 pp.

Pryor, John. H. Geography, Technology and War : Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649–1571. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. xvii +238pp.;£ 22.50 / US$ 39.50.

Baali, Fuad. Society, State and Urbanism : Ibn Khaldun's Sociological Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. 175 pp.; paper US$ 12.95, cloth US$ 34.50

Wilkinson, John (editor) with Hill, Joyce and Ryan, W.F., Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185. London: The Hakluyt Society,1988. xi + 372pp., 24 maps and plans; £ 16.00.

Heine, Peter. Kulinarische Studien: Vntersuchungen zur Kochkunst im arabisch‐islamischen Mittelalter. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,1988. 137pp.; DM 68.     

Figuring out the dome

The New Millennium Experience ‐ an exhibition on the theme of time sited in a fibre‐glass dome on the Greenwich Peninsula adjacent to the Prime Meridian ‐ was the centrepiece of Millennium celebrations in Britain. From its inception in the mid‐1990s ‘the Dome’ had been controversial for several reasons, not least of which was its financial viability were it not to prove very popular with the general public. Within weeks of opening, it emerged that the Dome was financially insecure to the point of possible bankruptcy. Largely funded by the National Lottery in the first place, four extra grants from that source were required in order to keep it open during the year 2000. The Dome was regarded widely as of dubious cultural value and a drain on public resources that might have been better spent elsewhere.

This chapter of Cultural Trends does not, strictly speaking, set out to confirm or refute these common criticisms of the Dome. Instead, it aims to establish the facts and figures concerning various aspects of the project as precisely as possible. This in itself is difficult to do since, for instance, the exact value of corporate sponsorship is impossible to ascertain due to commercial confidentiality, although it was quite a small proportion of the actual funding ‐ less than 20 per cent. Further complicating matters is polling evidence of high visitor approval for the Dome which must be set against its general damnation in the media.

In effect, the chapter traces a complex process whereby an ambitious cultural project was beset by a series of seemingly intractable problems from beginning to end, including eventual disposal and future use of the site. Whether the Dome is considered an abject failure or an under‐reported success, it certainly did not meet its official targets in terms of visiting, revenue and sponsorship.     

Book reviews

Rotter, Ekkehart, Abendland und Saratenen: das okxidentale Araberbild und seine Entetehung im Frühmittelalter. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986. (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients, neue Folge, Band 11) 290+xiipp. 2 genealogical charts; Sketch map; sketch; DM 158.

Irwin, Robert. The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamlük Sultanate 1250–1382. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986. 180 pp.: US $26.95.

Kobbervig, Karl I. El Libro de las Suertes: tratado de adivinación por el Juego de azar. Estudio, edición y glosario. Madrid: Gredos, 1987 (Colección de Literatura Española Aljamiado‐Morisca, 7), 227pp., including a full‐page facsimiles from the MSS.

Cutler, Allan Harris and Cutler, Helen Elmquist. The Jaw as Ally of the Muslim: Medieval Roots of Anti‐Semitism. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986, x + 577 pp., Indices; bibliography; US $50.00

Parker, S. Thomas. Romans and Saracens: A History of the Arabian Frontier. (American Schools of Oriental Research 1986. Dissertation Series, 6) Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns,1987. xiii + 247pp.: US $25.00.

De Montêquin, François‐Auguste (compilar). Muslim Architecture of the Ibrian Peninsula: Eastern and Wastern Sources for Hispano‐Islamic Building Arts. West Cornwall. Locust Hill Press, 1987, xv + 241 pp.; US $30.00.     

The presence of museums in the lives of Canadians, 1971–1998: What might have been and what has been

This chapter reviews data from seven large‐scale national surveys that measured cultural participation in Canada from 1971 to 1998. It assesses what the data imply regarding the numbers and types of people visiting museums, and how these have changed over time.

While overall participation rates have sustained the levels of the 1970s, participation rates in 1998 do not reflect the growth in participation projected then. Furthermore, the spectrum of people visiting museums has narrowed, rather than being ‘democratised’. Those with post‐secondary education have always been more likely to visit museums but now represent a majority of visitors for the first time.

That museums are now attracting relatively fewer people and fewer types of people suggests a diminishing presence for museums. Nonetheless, museums’ audiences are noticeably less elite than often portrayed, and there are opportunities for changes in policy and programmes designed to reach more people. Ultimately, though, the surveys give only limited insight into the role of museums in the lives of the general public, and new types of research and measurement are needed.