The State of Ohio just gave AT&T permission to stop delivering White Pages books to its subscribers. That makes business sense, I'm sure. Those hefty volumes must cost a ton to produce and deliver. And we do live in a new era of information distribution. Like most folks, I am more likely to search for numbers and addresses on the Web. But I like the White Pages for those times when a) my high speed internet isn't working; b) I don't have a computer; and c) it's easier to search around by approximate name. Perhaps, as with legacy library collections, the cost of these conveniences (and might we even say pleasures) is too high to bear.
Still, I find these small losses losses, nonetheless. Perhaps not of the magnitude of our nation's card catalog destruction…but as a person who has actually created a publication out of the content of phone books (albeit, the Yellow Pages), paint me vaguely blue.
One winner here: trees. Especially seeing them strewn across every stoop and doorstep in the city, I've always cringed at the thought of all the trees that go into their production when most people probably don't use them much anymore.
Oh, I am so jealous! We get three huge, wasteful phone books a year, and I wish there was some way to stop their delivery. Recycling them doesn't really do much.
Many years ago I worked as a camp councilor for young over-achievers who wanted to study in the summer. We had to make up name-tags to put on their dorm rooms before the campers arrived. I could think of nothing clever so just photo-copied random pages from the white pages and then wrote the name of the campers in marker on the top. When asked what my "theme" was (we were supposed to have themes) I said "people I don't know and don't care about." It was more popular with the other staff than with the kids. Now, the chance to do the same thing is gone.