I’m talking about printed phone books, which (at least around here) are still delivered automatically to every home and business. Do you use them, or toss them in the recycling and look up phone numbers online?
The reason I ask, in case you care, is that the local phone company is hitting up my business to renew our Yellow Pages ad. I understand that the SDMB is hardly an unbiased group of Luddites, but I’m still curious as to whether that ad is worth spending money on.
I do not have a mobile phone. If I am moving house and my landline isn’t connected, I have no Internet so I may need a phone book.
That is the only, very specific situation, in the last 15 years that I have needed one.
in smaller town USA where the directories are physically smaller they would get used more. also a smaller town USA directory now covers a county (or that size area in parts of more than one county) so people find all stores within travel distance.
I understand what you’re saying, Johnpost, but I live in a town of 2,300 people and every business phone number I’ve needed to find in the last couple years showed up near the top of a Google search. And with the number of people who have ditched their land lines and gone mobile-only, the white pages are becoming increasingly useless.
We use our yellow pages rarely to find a business number. We live in the country and some of the smaller businesses (exterminators, electricians, poultry processors, etc.) have no web presence. I expect this will change within the next couple of years and we will no longer even keep the books.
I don’t even think I have one. The last time I recall using one was maybe 5 years ago, before I had a smartphone, and needed to look up the number of the power company to report an outage. They just take up space in the kitchen drawers.
I haven’t had one in the house in probably 8 years and for an additional 2 years prior to that I’m pretty sure I only picked up the phone book to move it. I’ve no idea who still needs them. They were recently dropped off at my building and of 40 units, I think two were taken and the rest all went to recycling. What a waste.
Completely different (but Western) country – Phone Company has stopped delivering phone books to homes since… 5? years ago.
You can still pick one up at the Post Office if you really want one.
Haven’t looked up a number in a physical book in probably a decade. If Google fails me, our phone company has a good online Directory Assistance site – effectively an online “White Pages” – and the Yellow Pages are fully online as well.
We use ours pretty often. And we have multiple phone books covering different areas. We’re rather rural, and its usually faster to find numbers in the book than online.
I hate when they drop them off. Just one more thing for be to have to recycle.
The reason you ask helps me give you a better response. I really use my phone books. Reasons:
- Residential numbers sometimes go private, or get ported to a cell carrier, then are no longer listed. If it’s the same as in print from last year, I can take a guess at the number.
- I have a landline phone. Sometimes I don’t feel like going to the internet or dialing 411 for a number, and will pick up a phonebook.
I DO NOT use my phone books for yellow page ads. I might use the yellow pages to find your number, if I know the name of your company. But I will not go to category: plumbers and dial one based on the ad. Often I find my first thought may be go to: sewer, then it says see: pipes then that says see: plumber, and I hate that goosechase of pageturning. I won’t do it. If I had to pick a company to blindly call, I would take the time to sit down and go online, maybe read reviews, look at websites. But never the yellowpages.
The yellowpages are even a bitch when just trying to call a particular grocery store. You look under grocery, you look under department store, you look under food, not listed. Then it’s in the whitepages.
I live in a large apartment building and they occasionally drop off phone books in the mailbox area. I haven’t used one in ten years at least. At my previous apt, they’d be recycled quickly.
I had to use one last weekend: needed to buy car insurance for the new vehicle that I picked up from The Bloke, and he doesn’t have the interweb anymore. So I flicked thru the local yellow/white pages (only a small one, rural area) and picked the first ad I saw!
Before that, it’s been at least ten years. 
Silly Gary…you missed the option of people visiting non-internetted houses when they need a commercial number!
I rely heavily on the yellow page ads in selecting a business or service. I’d be quite sad if they stop printing phone books.
I don’t have a smart phone, so I do still use the phone book. I don’t keep my computer on 24 hours a day.
I would still use the yellow pages to look for certain kinds of businesses. If I moved to a new town, I would probably look at the yellow pages to find a veterinarian. In that case, I’d be looking for something close to where I live.
For a plumber, I wouldn’t use the yellow pages. I would ask around for recommendations.
I voted no, but in fact I do use the yellow pages: I have two big volumes of them on my desk under my computer screen holding it up to the right height. Don’t know what I’d do without them!
I use them when our internet is down (happens sometimes). Sometimes use the yellow pages to find which of a not very common business type is nearest to me, if Google isn’t playing nice.
I voted that I haven’t used a phone book in over a year, but then I realized that is not correct. I used one at work a few months ago to look up the phone number for the neighboring township in the government section of the white pages.
Even before the internet, I rarely used the yellow pages. I can only think of three circumstances- to find a sewer-cleaning service, to find a notary or to find a business that I already know about. If a need a new drug store ,well, I see plenty of those while I’m traveling about the neighborhood and if I need a plumber or electrician, I’ll ask for recommendations.