When Adelaide City Council (ACC) in Australia wanted to reduce the levels of paper and electronic mail it sent to members of its library services, it investigated SMS.

In October last year the council implemented a service to its Library customers using SMS to advise when a requested library item became available. Previously members were sent such advice by post or via e-mail.

Nigel Morris, IT commercial applications for information management team leader at Adelaide City council, said the introduction of SMS allowed a more rapid turnover of the library's 130,000 item collection, because customers receiving immediate, and timely, notification instead of waiting for the post or the next time they checked their e-mail.

"Often customers are already out and about in the city when an SMS notification is received and are able to go to the library straight away to pick up the item," Morris said. "People's physical and e-mail addresses change and [often] are not updated, but mobile phone numbers usually stay the same. With the use of SMS our notification is generally always received."

The library advised all its members who had a mobile phone number recorded in its database and, because most agreed to use the service, uptake has been "rather successful".