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They've Got Your Number It's That Time Of Year For The Good Book

February 10, 1986|by LORI GROLLER, The Morning Call

The seed for the blue pages was actually planted by a Harrisburg woman who worked as an advocate. After being able to contact her runaway daughter through a hotline service, the woman realized how little most people know about the numerous helping agencies available to them. She prepared a directory on her own, but couldn't find a way to distribute it adequately, until Bell stepped in. Today, organizations like the United Way help Bell compile this information for their respective communities.

"What's particularly useful about the Guide to Human Services is that the agencies are listed by how they are referred to in the community," explained Ford. "In the white and yellow pages, listings have to be done by the true name under which the organization operates. For example, the Red Cross would be listed under the American Red Cross in the white and yellow pages because that's its true name. But in the blue pages, it could be listed as Red Cross, which is what people are more familiar with, because tariff regulations do not apply to blue pages."

At about the same time the Guide to Human Services was being developed, the government complained to Bell that people were having a hard time finding government listings. Instead of seeing red, Bell saw blue and combined the two groups under one color. Since debuting locally in 1980, the blue pages have expanded to include school districts as well.

Even though there is no longer just one telephone company, there is still only one basic format for telephone directories, which changes very little from year to year, except for the covers.

"You need this because of the transiency of people," replied Dave Hendricks, Lehigh Valley community relations manager for Bell of Pennsylvania. "Without a universal format, people who move from one part of the country to another would have to re-learn the philosophy of each phone book. Imagine that in an emergency situation."

In addition to the regional Bell companies, independent telephone operations also try to keep their directories comparable to this standard format. The Lehigh Valley has two independents in its midst - Continental Telephone Co. of Hershey, Dauphin County, which provides telephone service to Emmaus and Commonwealth Telephone Co. of Dallas, Luzerne County, which oversees both the Bangor-Pen Argyl-Pocono region and the Coopersburg Telephone Co.

Unlike Bell, neither of the two independents publish their own directories due to the cost factors involved. Instead, Continental relys on Mast Advertising of Kansas to compile its book, while Commonwealth has contracted with the Reuben H. Donnelley Corp. of Gulph Mills, Montgomery County, for its directory needs.

Continental says the new Emmaus phone book usually comes out in March and always includes the Bell white pages for Allentown and the blue pages. Independents will usually buy from Bell those sections that fall within their extended service area.

Commonwealth also buys the Allentown white pages for its Coopersburg edition. Commonwealth's directories won't be available until August.

Looking to the future, Hendricks admits that someday people will be able to call up their telephone directory on their home computers, but that won't necessarily spell the directory's demise.

"I personally believe that people have developed a strong dependency on obtaining information from directories," he replied. "They are like a companion. There will always be a segment of the population that forever in a day would rather look at a book than a computer. It's like picking up a magazine. You can page through it, write on it, play with it. . . . I'm quite convinced that as long as there are telephones, there will be telephone directories."

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