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American countries. "Aerospace Computing," a National Air and Space Museum exhibit to examine the impact of computers on aerospace technology and vice versa, is more than half funded. The National Museum of American Art's Inventory of American Sculpture has received a grant of $150,000 over three years and has requested funds from three other foundations. The Conservation Analytical Laboratory has proposed to build a radiation shield onto the reactor at the National Bureau of Standards to irradiate paintings and other art objects prior to further conservation and is seeking a total of $135,000 from four foundations. The Bering Straits Exhibition, a Smithsonian cooperative venture with the USSR and Canada featuring Siberian ethnographic materials common to both sides of the Straits, has a total budget of $2.6 million, of which $300,000 is needed in cash and $250,000 is needed in in-kind transportation from seven international airlines serving Moscow. 

Approximately $650,000 will be required for the complete refurbishment of the outdated, ten-year old Insect Zoo of the National Museum of Natural History, and some $500,000 is still needed for the immediate next step of the conversion of the Multiple Mirror Telescope at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, from six small mirrors to one large one in order to increase power and observations of extragalactic phenomena.

[[underlined]]Smithsonian Credit Card[[/underlined]]

Referring to a report on the status of the negotiations toward a Smithsonian credit card, Mr. Adams pointed out that the National Board of Smithsonian Associates had strongly advised the Secretary and the Board of Regents not to pursue the matter further at this time. The National Board took the position that the image of the Smithsonian would suffer from the appearance of a close affiliation with a commercial enterprise and that, with the current state of the banking industry with regard to credit cards, projections of Smithsonian income were not reliable. It was

VOTED that the Board of Regents abandons the project of developing a credit card. 

[[underlined]]Considerations Bearing on a Major Capital Campaign[[/underlined]]

Mr. Adams pointed out that the Smithsonian's endowment funds are relatively small in comparison with major private universities and, as a consequence, discretionary funding at the Institution is not what it ought to be. For that reason he introduced a number of considerations that ought to be weighed in further thinking about the possibility of launching a major capital campaign, citing examples of some goals (augmentation of funds to be flexibly administered; increased funding for acquisitions; endowed chairs to enhance Smithsonian scholarship; endowed series of lectures, concerts, or other cultural series; and augmentation of pre- and post-doctoral fellowship programs) and pointing candidly to some possible difficulties. 

While it was noted that the National Board of the Smithsonian Associates had expressed some misgivings about launching a major endowment drive, the Regents pointed out that such a campaign could in some ways increase the interest of people in supporting other projects at the