A
telephone directory (also called a
telephone book,
phone book and
white/yellow pages) is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory. Its purpose is to allow the telephone number of a subscriber identified by name and address to be found.
Content
Subscriber names are generally listed in alphabetical order, together with their postal or street address and
telephone numberA telephone number or phone number is a sequence of digits used to call from one telephone line to another in a public switched telephone network. When telephone numbers were invented, they were short — as few as one, two or three digits — and were given orally to a switchboard operator...
. In principle every subscriber in the geographical coverage area is listed, but subscribers may request the exclusion of their number from the directory, often for a fee; their number is then said to be "unlisted" (
American EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
), "ex-directory" (
British EnglishBritish English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
) or "private" (
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
).
A telephone directory may also provide instructions about how to use the
telephone serviceLocal telephone service is the provision of telecommunications networks and services within a limited geographic region.Traditionally, local telephone service was provided by small companies based in given cities and towns as opposed to larger, national or international companies...
in the local area, may give important numbers for emergency services, utilities, hospitals, doctors and organizations who can provide support in times of crisis. It may also have
civil defenseCivil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
or
emergency managementEmergency management is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the...
information. There may be transit maps, postal code guides, or stadium seating charts, as well as advertising.
In the US, under current rules and practices,
mobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
and
Voice over IPVoice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
listings are not included in telephone directories. Efforts to create cellular directories have met stiff opposition from several fronts, including those who seek to avoid telemarketers.
Types
A telephone directory and its content may be known by the color of the paper it is printed on.
- White pages generally indicates personal or alphabetic listings. Telephone directories using the name "White Pages" exist in 91 different countries.
- Yellow pages
Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...
, golden pages, A2Z, or classified directory is usually a "business directory," where businesses are listed alphabetically within each of many classifications (e.g., "plumbers"), almost always with paid advertising.
- Gray pages
A reverse telephone directory is a collection of telephone numbers and associated customer details...
, sometimes called a "reverse telephone directory," allowing subscriber details to be found for a given number. Not available in all jurisdictions for reasons of privacy.
Other colors may have other meanings; for example, information on government agencies is often printed on blue or green pages.
Publication
Telephone directories can be published in
hard copyIn information handling, a hard copy is a permanent reproduction, or copy, in the form of a physical object, of any media suitable for direct use by a person , of displayed or transmitted data...
or in electronic form. In the latter case, the directory can be provided as an online service through proprietary terminals or over the Internet, or on physical media such as CD-ROM. In many countries directories are both published in book for and also available over the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. Printed directories were usually supplied free of charge before online access was available; more recently there is often a charge, although subscribers are not obliged to buy a printed directory.
In
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the
MinitelThe Minitel is a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. It was launched in France in 1982 by the PTT...
videotexVideotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
system originated as an attempt by
France TélécomFrance Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
to rid itself of its paper publishing costs by renting a Minitel terminal to all telephone users. However, France Télécom continues to give hard copies to its subscribers.
In
SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, most pay phones are now accompanied with electronic telephone directory terminals instead of paper directories, and phone users are charged for each search.
History
The first telephone directory, consisting of a single piece of cardboard, was issued on February 21, 1878; it listed 50 businesses in
New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
that had a telephone.
The first
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
telephone directory was published on 15 January 1880 (the year after a public telephone service was introduced into the UK) by The Telephone Company. It contained 248 names and addresses of individuals and businesses in London; telephone numbers were not used at the time as subscribers were asked for by name at the exchange. The directory is preserved as part of the British phone book collection by
BT ArchivesBT Archives is an archive preserving the documentary heritage of BT and its public sector predecessors. It is designated an official place of deposit for Public Records, for those records created prior to BT's privatisation in 1984....
.
The Reuben H. Donnelly company asserts that it published the first classified directory, or yellow pages, for Chicago, Illinois, in 1886.
In 1981 France is the first country to have an Electronic Directory on a prehistoric Internet system called
MinitelThe Minitel is a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. It was launched in France in 1982 by the PTT...
.
The Directory is called "11" after its telephone access number.
In 1991 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in
Feist v. Rural) that telephone companies do not have a
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
on telephone listings, because copyright protects creativity and not the mere labor of collecting existing information. Within the geographical reach of the Court, the
Feist ruling has resulted in the availability of various telephone directory services on
CD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
and the
World Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
1994 is the year the first Telephone Directories go online in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Yellowpages.com.au is the fist one soon followed by Whitepages.com.au both operated by the Australian Phone company
TelstraTelstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
1996 is the year the first Telephone Directories go online in the USA.
Yellowpages.comYELLOWPAGES.com is an Internet web site operated by YELLOWPAGES.COM LLC which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T..-History:Both sites' operations were merged into Yellowpages.com in 2005. As a result of SBC Communications' merger with AT&T, the post merger AT&T wholly owned an additional...
and
Whitepages.comWhitePages.com is a website with a searchable directory of contact information and other information, mainly about people. WhitePages.com is used as a directory service of major organizations such as MSN and the United States Postal Service...
, both see their start in april.
While Yellowpages.com is now part of
AT&TAT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, Whitepages.com is still owned by Alex Algard, its original founder.
In other countries Online Directories start at a little later.
In France the first Directory Pageszoom.com, later rebranded as Pagesjaunes.fr goes online in 1997.
English Whitepages.fr only arrive in may 2004.
In Italy Paginebianche.it start in 1999 - English Whitepages.it only arrive in july 2004.
Reverse directories
A reverse telephone directory is sorted by number, which can be looked up to give the name and address of the subscriber. Reverse telephone directories are used by law enforcement and other emergency services in order to determine the origin of any request for assistance. These systems include both publicly accessible (listed) and private (unlisted) services. As such, these directories are restricted to internal use only. Publicly accessible reverse telephone directories are provided as part of the standard directory services from the telecommunications carrier in some countries.
Phone books in popular culture
Ripping phone books in half has often been considered a feat of strength. The Guinness World Record for ripping the most telephone directories is 27 and then French telephone directories is 29 held by Georges Christen.
- In the show MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
on the Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
, Adam SavageAdam Whitney Savage is an American industrial design and special effects designer/fabricator, actor, educator, and co-host of the Discovery Channel television series MythBusters. His model work has appeared in major films, including Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and The Matrix...
and Jamie HynemanJames Franklin "Jamie" Hyneman is an American special effects expert, best known for being the co-host of the television series MythBusters. He is also the owner of M5 Industries, the special effects workshop where MythBusters is filmed...
tried to separate two phone books with the pages interlaced with each other. Most viewers assume that the two phone books used are regular San Francisco area Yellow PagesYellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...
. The myth states that two phone books with interlaced pages cannot be pulled apart. After using themselves in a game of tug-o-war, two five-person tug-o-war teams, all 10 people vs. the anchored books, then two rental cars, they resorted to using two older American military vehicles, a tank and an armored personnel carrier. While the phone books were separated, the force gaugeA force gauge is measuring instrument used across all industries to measure the force during a push or pull test. Applications exist in research and development, laboratory, quality, production and field environment...
that was used recorded 8000 pound-forces (35,585.8 N) of force when the interlacing failed. Savage explained that they would have been able to suspend the weight of the two rental cars they used earlier, using the interlaced phone books as the attaching point. The books stayed together due to the friction of the hundreds of pages rubbing against each other.
Phone books are used in multiple scenes of intimidation and impending death in HBO's popular crime-drama series,
The SopranosThe Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
:
- In the episode, "College", Tony Soprano
Anthony John "Tony" Soprano, Sr. is an Italian-American fictional character and the protagonist on the HBO television drama series The Sopranos, on which he is portrayed by James Gandolfini. The character was conceived by The Sopranos creator and show runner David Chase, who was also largely...
uses a pay phone telephone directory to locate wiseguy Fabian "Febby" Petrullio, who had turned State's WitnessA witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
before being kicked out of the witness protectionWitness protection is protection of a threatened witness or any person involved in the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during and after a trial, usually by police...
program, and assumed the name "Frederick 'Fred' Peters".
- In the episode, "Where's Johnny?", Phil Leotardo intimidates Lady Shylock, Lorraine Calluzzo, by having her tightly bound and gagged with duct tape
Duct tape, or duck tape, is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that gaffer tape was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape was not. It has a standard width of and is generally silver or black...
, and shot at, using a telephone directory to stop the bullet.
- In "Pie-O-My", Adriana La Cerva
Adriana La Cerva played by Drea de Matteo, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series The Sopranos. She is the long-time girlfriend and, later, fiancée of Tony Soprano's protégé, Christopher Moltisanti.-Character history:...
witnesses Tony SopranoAnthony John "Tony" Soprano, Sr. is an Italian-American fictional character and the protagonist on the HBO television drama series The Sopranos, on which he is portrayed by James Gandolfini. The character was conceived by The Sopranos creator and show runner David Chase, who was also largely...
's men intimidating a man named Giovanni at the Crazy Horse nightclub, by hitting him about the head with a telephone directory.
See also
- DNS
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
- LDAP
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol network...
- Silent number
In telephony, a silent number, unlisted number , ex-directory number or private number is a telephone number that is intentionally not listed in telephone books....
- Whois
WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores...