The End of the Phone Book As We Know It?

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While reading my print version of the New York Times this morning, with my cup of tea at my kitchen table, I came across a front page report entitled “White Pages May Go Way of Rotary-Dialed Phone.”

The digital age may claim another victim. The residential White Pages, those inches-thick tomes of fine-print telephone listings that may be most useful as doorstops, could stop landing with a thud on doorsteps across New York later this year.

It’s a trend. In both Albany, NY and Kentucky, public service commissioners have agreed to let AT&T to discontinue mass distribution and deliver white pages only upon request. Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill allowing residents to opt out of white page delivery. It makes sense. As Ramon Almanzar, a concierge in a New York apartment building says in the New York Times article, many people just don’t use them.

When residential directories were delivered this year to the Ivy Tower, an apartment building on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, Ramon Almanzar, a concierge, kept 28 copies in case residents wanted them. Not a single occupant of the 320-unit building claimed one, Mr. Almanzar said. “We end up throwing them away,” he said, as he greeted residents and opened a glass door. “Everyone goes online anyways.”

While he has a good point, and survey statistics back him up, it made me wonder why, once again, is this an either/or, print versus online proposition?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the publishers of phone books to figure out a way to re-create them so that they work _with_ online resources? Why just keep doing the same old thing, then give up when that ends up being useless? These publishers have access to millions of households all across the country, and they are just going to walk away from that? Why not create and print mini-directories organized by address, so people can have a handy reference to information about their entire neighborhood? Then package that with appropriate online links to resources certain neighborhoods might find valuable. Other uses for white pages or their sister publication, the yellow pages? This article from The New Zealand Herald suggests a few. Door-stops. Computer stands. Pressing flowers. But others point out that internet connections can be disrupted, and that online listings can be incomplete. It just seems like the phone book publishers might want to rethink it before they walk away from this distribution channel entirely.

For an entirely creative take on re-purposing content, check out Alex Queral’s phone book carvings. If you’ve been through the Philadelphia airport recently, you may have seen them. The online pictures don’t them justice, but the online site does provide an interesting explanation of how he turns an ordinary phone book into a work of art.

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