ONE of the advantages of the internet is that a museum's rare and archive material can be opened up to the world simply and easily.

The Tate Gallery (www.tate.org.uk/archivejourneys) has linked up with BT to open up its archive.

The material, which includes rare artefacts, letters and photographs, gives a fascinating and highly visual insight into three interesting subjects.

First is the Tate's history, second the Bloomsbury Group and finally the art world of the 1960s and 1970s as seen through the eyes of the art critic Barbara Reise.

Previously visitors could view the material only by special appointment. The site presents an overview of the material available, including a variety of photographs, documents, audio and other material.

Through these presentations, Tate hopes to give visitors an insight into the archive which survived the war and even a flood.

THE decision by Microsoft to close down its chatrooms has been greeted with criticism by many of its rivals.

Although at first glance the shutting of the rooms will put a block on abuse of them by paedophiles and spammers, there are fears that the move could be counter-productive.

Experts believe that paedophiles could exploit the move to find out other ways to contact children they first met online.

Many children may start sharing e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers in a bid to stay in touch with the friends they made on the web.

Another fear is that children could be scattered to corners of the web that are less popular and so more difficult to track down should problems arise.

It is still unclear if other companies will also close their chatrooms, but considering the furore Microsoft's move has caused many may just hang-fire.

THE campaigning work of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (www.ifaw.org) can be followed on its site.

Soon it will be Animal Action Week which will be all about elephants and the threat poachers pose to their existence.

But the site also has up-to-date news, some great pictures and plenty of information on how you can help.