>>Community Report COMMUNITY REPORT 2001: Susan Ball Susan Ball Executive Director, College Art Association Eve Sinaiko Director of Publications, College Art Association The College Art Association has developed CAA.Reviews (established in 1998), an electronic online book- and exhibition-reviews journal. The website comprises reviews written by leading scholars and experts in art history, theory, aesthetics, curatorial studies, and related fields. At present we post approximately 10 new reviews per month, but plan to expand the range and volume of reviews as funds permit. We concentrate on the significant new books and major exhibitions in scholarly art history, but hope soon to begin reviewing art-history textbooks, general surveys, conference proceedings, thematic anthologies of essays, trade art books, specialized museum catalogues, catalogues raisonnÈs--even perhaps children's art books. The uniquely expansive format of a website permits us to have a flexible and unrestricted scope and large ambitions at very modest cost. The international accessibility of the Internet permits each review to have a strong impact. CAA.Reviews fills a dual need. Book and exhibition reviews are an essential organ of scholarship. They examine new research and publicize new discoveries. More than most forms of scholarship in the humanities, art history, criticism, and theory depend on published books and articles and museum exhibitions for basic research. Art scholars work with visual material, much of it in obscure archives, private collections, and distant museums. Such images are often accessible only through published books, journal articles, and collection catalogues. Thus, art scholarship is heavily dependent on a complex web of academic, trade, and museum-based publishers. Book reviews not only inform scholars of new research, they also support art publishing by assisting publishers to promote new books. In the past decade, the economics of art publishing have grown ever more difficult, due to the dramatically rising cost of art reproductions. At the same time, the number of venues for reviews of art and art-history books has shrunk alarmingly. Museum exhibition and collection catalogues, scholarly publications, and general art books all get less and less attention in printed book reviews such as The New York Times Book Review and The New York Review of Books. The large chain bookstores have moved their art-book sections to low-traffic areas. In this climate CAA.Reviews performs an urgently needed function and serves our organization's members and the broader arts community in an appealingly rich variety of ways. Beneficiaries include authors of books, researchers, scholars, general readers, publishers, museums, libraries, and booksellers. CAA.Reviews informs readers and supports the publication of important books at a time when market pressures are driving even nonprofit academic presses to limit their publishing efforts in the arts.