On March 14,Bai Xuesong,a guide at the Beilin Museum in Xi’an,northwest China’s Shaanxi province,hosted a live broadcast displaying the collections at the museum,which attracted over 300,000 viewers.

Bai has become a hit on the Internet ever since he started giving tours of the museum collections through live streaming videos on February 23.After viewing his broadcasts,many netizens expressed a desire to visit the museum when it reopened after the COVID-19 outbreak.

It is estimated that more than 30 museums in China,including the National Museum of China and the Dunhuang Academy China,have hosted live broadcasts on online platforms during the epidemic(流行病),each gaining over 10 million viewers in one day.The Gansu Provincial Museum,one of the museums that have been exploring online platforms and using them,attracted as many as 900,000 viewers at one point in its live broadcasts,more than half of its total viewers last year,according to the deputy curator(副館長)of the museum.As a result,the number of fans of the official online store of the museum on the e-commerce platform Taobao has grown to 25,000,with sales of related products seeing a huge increase.

“Cooperation between museums and Internet platforms is beneficial to both sides,”said Huang Yang,vice professor with the cultural heritage and museology(博物館學)department of the Nanjing Normal University.He said that while museums need to use live broadcasts to spread culture,Internet giants need the resources that museums possess to provide high-quality content for users.