Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Yellow Pages!

Next in our Throwback Technology series: the Yellow Pages!

But before we get into that exciting item from the past (also the present?), we need to answer the question posed last week:  what is this mystery item?

Now, we did not get a lot of guesses.  Some thought it might be some sort of electric curling device (for the Canadian sport, not your hair).  Maybe like those air hockey games?  Nope, not even close.  Much closer was the guess: "Degaussing - bulk recording tape eraser - essentially a giant magnet."  Now we're getting somewhere.

Yes, this item is a book magnetizer, which would be run along the spine of a book in which a thin magnetic strip had been glued.  Pressing the button activated the magnet, and made the book able to set off an alarm at the library's entrance if someone removed it without checking it out at the circulation desk.  At the desk there would be a large block magnet that would remove the magnetism from the book when you ran the spine along it (sadly, we appear to not have saved either of the ones we had).  The magnetizer would then be used as books were returned to get them ready and secure for the shelves.  You could have a whole cart full of books ready to shelve, and then run the magnetizer along each spine.

We used this magnetic process until we moved on to something else that I am not at liberty to describe.  I will just say "AI and lasers" and leave it to your imagination.

So, the Yellow Pages!  The pages above are inside the Yellow Pages book, but are actually white ("the business white pages").  The Yellow Pages were an alphabetical and subject organized list of businesses and organizations in a community.  This is the 2013-14 Middletown/Lebanon/Springboro Yellow Pages, and apparently the last one we decided to keep.  I chose that page because it points out why so many businesses would start their names with AAA or AAAAA so that they were listed in the front of the book.

This is the subject organized section of the book, more yellow, and lots of ads that businesses could buy to stand out from the basic listing of name, address, and phone number.

Your local phone provider would create the Yellow Pages for your quick reference when ordering pizza or finding a podiatrist or calling your local library.  They are still made, and, at least in my neighborhood sit on the sidewalks and driveways until they get wet and soggy, and then perhaps get tossed in the garbage or recycling bins.  But back in the day, when we had no Internet, this was the way to know your community and find stuff!  And of course, the Yellow Pages was the cousin to the Phone Book, which had white pages, and listed all of the residential telephone listings.  I recall when I was growing up that the two books were combined (white pages in the front and yellow pages in the back).  

It's interesting to think back to this time, and see how important such an organized list of names and  numbers would be.  You could call the operator to find a number if you knew someone's name, but if you weren't sure of your options, the Yellow Pages was key.  Likewise with people:  you might have all of your friends numbers memorized or in a small address book you carried, but tracking down the number of someone you just met (or were hoping to meet) would be hard without the phone book.

So, I think about these older ways of organizing, which I think are disappearing, if not from the world, at least from common understanding.  I think, for instance, that many of the students who come to our library don't know that most books have a handy alphabetical list of terms in the back called an index which can help you jump to the right spot to learn about a topic.  With e-books and keyword searching, these grow less important, but having a list of terms or an organization scheme really helps you track things down (like pizza).

If you'd like to see the Yellow Pages up close, stop by the library.   More throwback technology  is coming at you next week!