Phone Books

[Frozen Canuck]

We still get them. In fact, we get multiple phone books, since we live in the midst of several town areas and they tend to overlap. Ours go straight from the mailbox to the recycle bin and have for likely 10 years now. I can't even remember the last time I looked up a phone number in a phone book (either for a personal number or business). We haven't had a landline in over a decade and I imagine many people are heading that direction or are already at that point. I know a few people who have kept a landline for emergencies, but many haven't maintained one. We got rid of our landline when we went for months with nobody calling it, because everyone was calling our cellphones. The cupboard that once held stacks of phone books now just has a few take-out menus in it. That used to be the most important part of any yellow pages for us...the delivery menus for local restaurants, but even that is now online and/or apps on our phones.

The thing that I think is funny is that I used to memorize so many phone numbers because I dialed them all of the time. Now, I couldn't even recite the phone numbers for my kids! If I lost my phone, I would never be able to call one of them to help. Any numbers I get, I put into my cellphone and then I never look at them again.

 

[tvguy]

Yup, still use them. Invaluable research tool. Online directories often don't list addresses. Or if you don't know an exact spelling, you are up the creek without a printed directory. My boss was trying to make us throw ours out, until I found information we needed for a story...that was ONLY in the phone book.

Took a tour of the California State Library last month. Their most used collection? Phone books. They have every phone book ever published for every county in California.

 

[mousefan73]

Where we live our towns are very small, maximum maybe 1000 households. And so our telephone book the white pages is separated by town. So it is nice to skim through and just see people at a glance who live in your area.In this case it is actually a lot faster and more efficient than looking online

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Online directories often don't list addresses.

Or if you don't know an exact spelling, you are up the creek without a printed directory.

What kind of directory are you using?

Are you trying to find a person who works for a specific company?

 

[cabanafrau]

If you're tossing directly in the recycling bin please at least make an attempt to opt out.

BTW, they are specifically listed in recycling programs in our area as not accepted. Before you toss it into recycling please check if your system has a means of actually doing so.

 

[tvguy]

What kind of directory are you using?

Are you trying to find a person who works for a specific company?

Usually we are looking for individuals and their home addresses.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Usually we are looking for individuals and their home addresses.

Ahh ok I see. Yeah usually white pages online figures it out or a good search where something else picks it up but for sure there's got to be some cases where it's not found online through a search especially a free search.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

If you're tossing directly in the recycling bin please at least make an attempt to opt out.

I didn't even know I could opt out until someone posted that link. I went in and opted us out after seeing the link the person posted. So at least take into consideration people may not even be aware it's a choice to opt out much less where to go to do so. None of our books have printed on it instructions on if you want to no longer receive them. At least I know now though

BTW, they are specifically listed in recycling programs in our area as not accepted. Before you toss it into recycling please check if your system has a means of actually doing so.

For sure though people should be doing that for anything they put in their recycling bin.

Another thing to look for is if someone's provider doesn't accept it to see if there are recycling centers elsewhere in their area that will accept them. We do that for glass as glass is not accepted in recycling. There are however multiple drop off points available for us to recycle our glass. We just store them in a box and take it to a drop off point when it's full (and then reuse the box lol).

 

[BrianL]

I got one not that long ago, but it was super small compared to the old days. I usually keep the newest one, but when I went to put it in it's spot I noticed I had several others stacked there. I ended up just tossing all of them in the recycling bin.