A girl reads e-book at the 2019 Shanghai Book Fair in Shanghai, on Aug 20, 2019. [Photo/Sipa]

HANGZHOU - The 6th China Digital Reading Conference, an industry gathering in East China's city of Hangzhou, kicked off on Thursday.

The annual conference, held online for the first time, provides viewers with resources from 130 top museums in China, VR-powered bookstores, as well as high-quality IP contents.

Jointly held by the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association and local government departments in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, the conference features digital reading and 5G technologies.

This year's conference also emphasizes China's fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and will hold reading activities on this topic.

In response to an initiative by the association, over one million books and 400,000 audio clips, including content on disease prevention and control measures and basic medical knowledge, have been offered for free on several digital reading platforms in China since the disease outbreak, which has gained more than 7.22 billion times of reading.

The conference is scheduled to run until April 30.