The Guardian part 3

ArtBabble: the YouTube of the arts.

From Richard Serra to origami, there's a new place to watch arts films on the web. Ruth Jamieson delves into ArtBabble's fascinating online collection.

Where the BBC's iPlayer made watching TV on your computer as natural as writing an email, ArtBabble.org is set to do the same for viewing arts films. Now, instead of catching up on EastEnders, you can broaden your mind with arts films from a handful of key galleries. The films, all of which can be commented on, shared and interacted with, take you behind the scenes of major art galleries, offer interviews with world-famous artists and transport you to lecture halls all over the globe.

It's quite genius really. Plus it beats rummaging around the Library only to realise someones already taken what would wanted.

But what makes the site exciting isn't just its breadth of content; it's the depth. Throughout the films on ArtBabble, "notes" appear on the right hand of the scene, attached to relevant points in the film. If another artist is referred to, a "note" links to their Wikipedia entry, if a news event crops up, there's a link to the newspaper report. So, in a half-hour talk about the Hello Kitty brand you're offered a link to the online home of Hello Kitty, Japanese tourism information and an introduction to Anime. In a film about the Louvre's restoration of Greek and Roman sculptures, you'll be given an introduction to mosaic, a primer on Greek mythology and suggestions for further viewing. You can even attach your own notes to a relevant frame of the film, rather than in a comments section below.