TWO new vehicles opened up a new era in North Yorkshire County Council's mobile library service this week.

With smart new purple livery, the mobiles are state of the art and will carry everything from DVDs, computer games and videos to the county's rural communities.

County council leader Coun John Weighell officially launched the brand new additions to the fleet with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday.

Then executive member with responsibility for libraries, Coun John Dennis, took the wheel and road-tested one of the vans before they both went into service.

The mobiles have new livery designed with the help of mobile library users, reflecting the range of services on offer.

Each vehicle has about 2,500 new items of stock, including books, videos and story tapes. New features have also been incorporated, such as computer workstations, photocopiers and air conditioning.

The fleet of 12 travels the length and breadth of North Yorkshire for more than 300 hours a week; visits all rural areas with communities of less than 1,500 on a three-week cycle; makes 1,970 stops of up to 30 minutes every three weeks and boasts 132,864 user-visits per year.

Gordon Gresty, the county's director of business and community services, said other mobiles in the fleet would be given new liveries over the next few months.

The two launched this week are the first in what will be a programme of replacements and cost about £160,000.