14 replies to this topic

[The Simpleton]

Phone books (telephone directories) used to be a common sight in every home in almost every part of the world. The thick books were helpful to quickly find someone's number,but nowadays its a tedious process to find a number using that book!Finding a number online or just asking someone else seems to be an easier way. And realizing this, seven cities in Canada have decided that they won't be publishing phone books anymore, unless someone requests for one. They felt that this would save a lot of paper, and they're right. In any case, most phone books remain unused these days and so this is a good idea which other countries should follow as well.Of course there will still be some people who may need them as they can't rely on the internet for everything, but even then it's not hard to make a call to the operator and find out the number, right? So let's hope others follow the example set by these cities and save huge amounts of paper soon.

[magnafrost]

I totally agree. In my place about 8 years back, we were given the option of either getting Telephone books or CDs. I of course chose the CDs but my grand parents made me go get the book. In any case, I haven't even seen the phone books for a long time ! God knows what happened to them!

[The Simpleton]

magnafrost, on 11 July 2010 - 09:21 AM, said:

I totally agree. In my place about 8 years back, we were given the option of either getting Telephone books or CDs. I of course chose the CDs but my grand parents made me go get the book. In any case, I haven't even seen the phone books for a long time ! God knows what happened to them!

Hmm I haven't heard of the option to get the directory in a CD, but that's a very good idea. If only it could be implemented everywhere with ease. At least in some countries the books are going to last for few more years before people get bored of them entirely. I just hope this happens fast so that we can use that paper for some other useful purpose.

[rvalkass]

I've got a few phone books, and still get a new one delivered each year. And, remarkably, I still use them I find it a lot easier to open the phone book and look up someone's name and number, or a business name and number, than start my PC, load BT's website and search there. While they do use up a lot of paper, they are very useful, and they get recycled afterwards. Making it possible to opt-out of receiving one, or make it an opt-in service, could be a good idea. However, me and many others would still be requesting them.

[abazi16]

The only positive thing on these books is that they are really huge so you can smash someone's head with that book ...

[The Simpleton]

rvalkass, on 11 July 2010 - 11:10 AM, said:

I've got a few phone books, and still get a new one delivered each year. And, remarkably, I still use them I find it a lot easier to open the phone book and look up someone's name and number, or a business name and number, than start my PC, load BT's website and search there. While they do use up a lot of paper, they are very useful, and they get recycled afterwards. Making it possible to opt-out of receiving one, or make it an opt-in service, could be a good idea. However, me and many others would still be requesting them.

It's true - there are still people who feel the need for these books, like you do. So maybe it would be useful to find out how many people need these books and then only those people could request for these books to be delivered. Making these books out of recycled paper is further a good measure to conserve paper. So instead of simply delivering the books to each and every person, it would be better to inform people in some way (ex. through their phone bill) that if they need these books, they should place a request (or order! ) and only then will they receive it.

[rpgsearcherz]

I never use phone books except when power goes out and we need to call the power company. Without the book, though, I could just as easily have written down the number and just use that to call them.

I don't really like phone books because they are huge, I rarely use them, and they are sometimes out of date. They can only account for a certain period of time (less than a year, when you consider production time, printing time, and delivery time). The same information that's in them is also available online -- usually more updated though.

I really like the idea listed above of putting them on a CD. CD's are very cheap, easier to use, and they would have a search ability, allowing you to much faster find the person you need, rather than flipping through the book.

[web_designer]

i absolutely agree with them, i doubt anyone now using phone books anymore, i could get whatever i want through the internet, or by calling anyone to ask him for anything i want or calling the customer servces to get any number i want, so it is a waste of papers and effort. but in the same time i think till now there are some people who using phone books especially those who don't know how to use computers and the internet, so i think they should continue publishing it for five or ten years more. so it is all depend on the country and the level of technology used in that country.

[anwiii]

abazi16, on 11 July 2010 - 11:49 AM, said:

The only positive thing on these books is that they are really huge so you can smash someone's head with that book ...

hahaha! good one! what you said reminds me of someone here who is always talking about hitting people with their big book.


i am old school thought when it comes to looking up #'s or businesses. i think the phone with with the white and yellow pages have a lot more local resources than what you can find online. i am all for researching stuff online. in fact, that's all i do sometimes but i have to say that the phone book will always be my safe bet over trying to find what i need on the internet.

[The Simpleton]

Quote

i am old school thought when it comes to looking up #'s or businesses. i think the phone with with the white and yellow pages have a lot more local resources than what you can find online. i am all for researching stuff online. in fact, that's all i do sometimes but i have to say that the phone book will always be my safe bet over trying to find what i need on the internet.

That's right - local businesses may/may not have an online presence so it's a good idea have those numbers handy. However, there's a much slimmer Yellow Pages directory available in some places and it usually holds only the local businesses' numbers and nothing else. That would be a useful resource for someone who don't need to have the entire directory but just the business numbers. And since it's slim it doesn't use up much paper either.

[sheepdog]

I really hate having to look something up in the phone book, especially government offices, since I have a hard time remembering if they are county, city, state or fedral offices. But I would hate it a lot worse if I had to Google a name and sort thew 2 million possibilities! If they did a cd for the local area, and added a good search feature it might be ok, but believe it or not, there are still a lot of people that don't have computers and still need phone books. And I recycle mine, they are great after being run threw the paper shredder for packing in puppy crates when I ship pups for them to poop in, keeps them nice and clean.

[web_designer]

Quote

hahaha! good one! what you said reminds me of someone here who is always talking about hitting people with their big book.

yeah hitting others with big and huge books is always work to deal with stubborn and annoying people , and i agree that phone book with all these pages is the perfect option, hahahaaa.

[sheepdog]

abazi16, on 11 July 2010 - 11:49 AM, said:

The only positive thing on these books is that they are really huge so you can smash someone's head with that book ...

Actually, our local phone book is not very big, it would only be suitable for swatting flys. However, even a very large phone book is not very substantial, they are usually pretty soft, flexable, floppy. I really think if I was going to hit somebody, I'd find something much more effecient, like a 2X4 or a cast iron skillet.

[The Simpleton]

I think the Yellow Pages book is perfectly balanced for both swatting flies and hitting someone. It just takes a little practice

[mahesh2k]

For places where there is no limited internet and lots of loadshedding, they can hardly lookup on the internet. Though there is very less issue of electricity and internet connectivity in canada so they can think that way. But i think that for many countries out there phone book still is one good option to lookup. Besides that there are some localized business listings which are more likely to be on phone book than online. Other than that i think phone books with business listing will soon get dumped. But i'm not sure about contacts in phone book, some telecom operators will continue to keep record of it. Because of mobile there is lot of privacy already which was under question while using wired phone where telecom company shared your number with many people. I'm glad that there is no phonebook from mobile companies that shares your number with rest of the world. Yellowpages, business listing are still important in phone book IMO, let canada screw that for their citizens.