Digital Resources

Let's begin with a series of posts about resources to support the study of Art History.

When I first taught the subject in school about 10 years ago I asked one of my students to set up a website so that we could begin to take advantage of the range of online resources available. I'm pleased to say that some of them still exist and are as useful as ever. The last 10 years, however, has seen a major shift in the ambition of large art institutions. Many of them have created a sophisticated online presence and have taken advantage of podcasting and the growth of the iPod as a portable learning device.

The Tate Gallery, for example, has made more than 400 audio and video downloads available on iTunes U a section of the online store which features educational content. The project includes recent interviews of contemporary artists and a series of films that use Twitter to bring the audience's questions directly to artists like David Hockney. Audio recordings of leading academics, teaching resources and multimedia guides for the latest Tate exhibitions are also made available. If you have an iPod that can play video, this is a great way to carry your learning around with you. Simply subscribe to the Tate's podcasts and sync it to your iPod via iTunes. Another Tate resource worth checking out is the series of TateShots video podcasts. Each short film is designed as an insight into a recent exhibition or activity at one of the four Tate galleries in Britain. Essential viewing.

I have begun to create a list of links to useful websites (top right) and set up a Twitter account with a feed to this site. It's amazing how many major galleries and museums have a Twitter presence. There are also a huge number of excellent (and useless) YouTube videos featuring art historical content. More of these later.

Perhaps readers would be kind enough to suggest useful websites that have not yet been added to the Links list? In future posts we can take a closer look at some of these resources.