Later today my wife and I are heading down to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, but before we go, we consult the Internet.

Realizing that any organization worth visiting will probably have plenty of online information about their site, we are not disappointed. This Houston museum, like many all over the world has the usual hours of operations, maps to get there, ticket prices, events schedule and, my favorite, the online tour of major exhibits.

Museums, other forms of art exhibition and the arts in general have long prospered on the Internet. Finding information about the arts and sampling the different genre via the World Wide Web can be quite entertaining. There are many fine sites to begin your artistic search.

World Wide Art Resources (WWAR) claims to be the "largest gateway to the arts" and purports to have over 500 categories and over 150,000 arts pages. If you are looking for anything related to art galleries, museums, exhibitions or their artists, try this site first. WWAR is well laid out and is easy to browse through listings or search for that specific piece of art or artist very quickly.

In addition to fine art, WWAR also shows category listings for film, theatre, literary, dance and others, but only the theatre section has much worth investigating beyond their focus of fine art.

The best site for information about theatrical events is Playbill's Theatre Central. In addition to having plenty of links to existing theatrical sites, you can also get the complete rundown of performances, especially in New York and London. Included are cast and story details, pictures, teasers, seating charts and ticket purchase information.

To order tickets to most major theatrical productions, concerts, sports events or entertainment venues, Ticketmaster is the site. See schedules, view events by area or search for your favorite artist, team, or company.

If you can't attend that concert you have been waiting for, it may be available for viewing or listening online. Yahoo! Net Events is the best place to find live daily events that are broadcasted on the Internet. You can either browse by category, view by calendar date or search for a specific topic. There were 2500 events I could have chosen from.

Many of events originate at the largest single repository of live broadcasts, AudioNet. AudioNet is the premiere site for most audiophiles. You can listen to over 140 radio stations live from around the world, or listen to one of the 150 AudioBooks or 1200 CD titles available.

No matter what area of the arts you are interested in, the World Wide Web probably offers information for you to examine, study or just plain enjoy.