I still receive, unsolicited, two different phone books delivered on my front step each year. For about the last 8 years, both of those books go directly into the trash or in the last 4-5 years into the recycle bin. If I need a phone number, I use the internet.
Our office discontinued receiving phone books about 6 years ago, and encourage employees to look up phone numbers using the internet.
First, how do I get these phone book companies to stop delivering a phone book on my front porch?
Second, do you still use a “phone book”? If so, why that versus using the internet?
I’ve found that phone book pages make an excellent barrier when planting a new garden. Instead of ripping out sod, I put down cardboard (if I have any handy) directly over the grass, then as much newspaper/phone book pages as I have handy, chopped leaves and grass clippings (repeat these last two as much as you can), then mulch. Do this at the end of the summer, and next spring you’ll have an excellent new garden plot.
Ingenious use of your phone book. I too recycle it through my local recycler. Maybe I should have re-worded my OP to ask, “who still uses a phone book, as it’s publisher intended it to?”
I leave one in my car for when I forget my cell phone or forget to charge it. The other day I was trying to find an Indian market in town and it wasn’t listed in the Yellow Pages. Bummer.
I used a phone book maybe once in the past 3 years. I moved to a new apt in a different state, was too tired from moving to buy groceries and cook when I was finished, and didn’t have internet yet to look up a place for delivery. I grabbed a phone book from the giant stack in my apt lobby and ordered a pizza. Well, I meant to but fell asleep before I could order anything. I did place an order the next day.
I use a paper phone book once in a while, when I either don’t have the compete info to look it up online.
Say I’m looking for business in the next town over, and I don’t remember the exact name. I can scan through the “bakery” section in the yellow pages until something rings a bell.
Or I’m looking for my friend Jane Doe and I don’t remember her phone number. I can scan down the list of Jane Does, find that none of the street addresses look right, and then see that she actually is listed as D Jane Doe (she must go by a middle name).
Internet sites really aren’t very good for scanning for find the information, if I don’t know exactly what I need. I have the same issues with dictionaries, if I don’t know the correct spelling. I can scan through the correct area of a paper dictionary and find what I’m looking for. Can’t do that online.
I get the annual ginoumous “official” yellow and white pages plopped on my doorstep every year, and also multiple third party local versions as well. Probably get a total of 5-6 phone books of various sizes each year. Damn things go straight to the recycle bin.
Wish i could stop them. Knowing how to search the internet makes phone books completely useless. AFAIK, no way to stop them. I’m not even a customer of the local telephone company, but still get their books.
They are not delivered by the US postal service. Normally it’s people driving around in cars, with no markings, dropping them off on the front porch at every house in the neighborhood.
If you live in Seattle, you can opt out for future phone books. But I don’t know if other cities are doing this yet.
The phone book people are not happy about it.
You can have my phone book when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. A lot of smaller places in my area aren’t listed on line and I’d be lost without it.
I confess to the occasional use, but would not miss it.
Phone companies around here keep saying they plan to stop delivering them to the door and only supply them on request or not at all.
I use one all the time…the internet phone books suck! We use it mostly at work. If someone asks where to find x, y or z, it’s a lot quicker to use the physical Yellow Pages and get the entire list of all Y stores right there in one tidy little spot. You can then quickly scan all twelve Y stores and see which one is nearest, and then call them right away. You don’t have to know the name of the store. Most of the internet Yellow pages will give you one listing…I want to see the whole page of hardware stores, or key shops, or embroidery shops, all on one page. Plus, it’s quicker than the computer…believe me, my boss and I have raced! And if we are doing a White Pages search, we can quickly skim an entire page of Kowalskis or Armands and find the right one. AND! No one teases me with half the information and says I have to pay to get the address. Granted, the reverse phone number look-up on the internet is great. But for actual businesses, the paper is much better.
And twice a year there is a special recycling truck just for phone books, to be made into animal bedding.
Ooh, I’ll try that, but I don’t know if it will make a difference, since in large apartment buildings they often just leave a giant stack of them in a common area anyway. The stack seems to barely be touched.
I never use a phone book, but oddly, I’ve found that a lot of people don’t even know HOW to use phone books. I worked at mall information in 2001 and people would often come to look up numbers in our phone books, and I can’t tell you how many times I had to explain to people that yellow pages are listed by category, etc.
Oddly too, though, now that I think about it, we had Internet right there in front of us, and I never did think to look it up for them on there, rather than teach them Phone Books 101. My coworkers didn’t either.
My local telephone company has a really sucky website, so I’ve quit using it to try to find phone numbers in town. Instead, I just plug the company name into my browser search engine and voila!
I don’t have a landline, still get two phone books a year. Granted they are both very small phone books, there being small towns around, but I don’t need 'em.
They’re useful for weights when I’m draining tofu. That’s about it.
On the front cover of our recently delivered Yellow Pages, I noted there’s a phone number to op out. So Toronto is another city that is doing it.
Edit:
I grew up “letting my fingers do the walking,” and it never ceases to amaze me how terribly some things are classified in the yellow pages. I can’t think of an example off hand, but it would be something like looking for “hardware fasteners”, and having to search through “sporting goods retail.”
There are ten flats in our building; ten phone books get left in the hallway and eventually all ten are taken away by the caretaker. Yellow Pages, Thompson and an extremely slim book with the phone numbers of the few people who aren’t ex-directory.
They should be opt-in. It must waste the phone companies tons of money.