A RANGE of activities will be held over the coming weeks to celebrate the opening of the Altona North Community Library.

The library was officially opened yesterday by Local Government Minister Richard Wynne and Hobsons Bay mayor Bill Tehan.

The $4.79million library was jointly funded: the council contributed $4.04million and the government the rest.

Altona North ward councillor Michael Raffoul said the library would provide resources for the Altona North and Brooklyn community. "For years, Altona North and Brooklyn residents have had to travel to a library [elsewhere]; now there will be a wide variety of resources at their fingertips," Cr Raffoul said.

"The library has a big collection of books, magazines, DVDs, CDs and talking books, and features collections in Arabic, Greek and Italian to cater to Altona North and Brooklyn's diverse community. It has community meeting spaces, a computer training room, cafe and courtyard, and technology allowing self-serve checkouts and returns, Wi-fi accessibility, and computers with internet access."