Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Ignores 'Grassroots' Cultural Exchanges

GAINESVILLE, Mo., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- On February 2nd, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted confirmation hearings for Ann Stock, Assistant Secretary Designate, State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).

In her opening statement, Ms. Stock said, "The mission of ECA is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through educational and cultural exchanges. I believe these initiatives are essential for achieving America's foreign policy objectives and for strengthening America's international leadership."

http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2010/StockTestimony100202p.pdf

For centuries, collectors of ancient coins have been advocates and patrons of such educational and cultural exchanges, most of which have been orchestrated through "grassroots" actions. The World Wide Web was originally created so that international researchers and scholars would be able to quickly share documents. Collectors, who often are independent scholars, have certainly embraced these goals.

Through email correspondence, collaboration and public discussion groups like Moneta-L, (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moneta-l/) collectors and scholars share everything from the problems of international shipping to cutting-edge theories on ancient coins and monetary systems. The members of this group come from many different countries and from all walks of life. They are private collectors, coin dealers, and academics of all stripes. The importance of such background diversity for effective scholarship is well known in the formation of "think tanks."

International coin shows like the annual New York International Numismatic Convention (http://www.nyinc.info/) do a similar thing in the "real" as opposed to the "virtual" world.

Since 2001, Ancient Coins for Education, Inc. (ACE) has provided ancient coins to school children in North America as a popular and effective aid for learning about the ancient world: http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/

International ancient coin dealers and private collectors have donated all of these coins, together with the prizes for winning student essays.

None of these activities are funded through government grants. Being "grassroots" actions, they cost the country nothing.

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) and most numismatic scholars are concerned that growing governmental regulation of their discipline, through policies based solely on ideology, will cause real and irreparable harm to the progress of grassroots cultural exchange and to ancient numismatics as a science and avocation.

To support or obtain further information on the ACCG visit their web site at:

http://www.accg.us/

The ACCG is also on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ancient-Coin-Collectors-Guild-ACCG/83289828153

Contact: Wayne G. Sayles, 417-679-2142

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SOURCE Ancient Coin Collectors Guild