Last November, I posted about the trials and tribulations of what once was a ubiquitous reference source: the phone book. This week, Mother Nature News asks the question, "What ever happened to phone books?" My follow-up question is, what prompted this question? since I got home from vacation last weekend to find...a new phone book lurking outside the door to my apartment. At one time, when I owned a house in the suburbs, I got no fewer than five different phone books yearly, all of which had different listings and made finding specific listings impossible. (Most annoyingly, one of the biggest Yellow Pages I got had sold spine advertising to a bankruptcy lawyer, and it said in big letters “Bankruptcy.” When I had the phone book on a bookshelf, whenever people would come over they’d ask with some concern why I had a book on bankruptcy. I finally had to scrawl “PHONE BOOK” over it in big black letters to allay suspicions about my financial status.) Anyway, what does Mother Nature Network think happened to the phone book?

These days, you’re more likely to see phone books outside the house than in. I’ve seen phone books left outside so long, they become lawn ornaments. In fact, nobody I know actually uses a phone book anymore. Actually, that’s not true. I think my great-aunt Hilda does. I’ve seen her use it to stand on to get something in the top cabinet in her kitchen.

Not surprisingly, there is a group out there called Ban the Phone Book, and I do think that’s a bit extreme. I actually do use a phone book every once in a while, and there are places that believe it or not don’t have ready Internet access and still do rely on printed phone directories. Plus, according to phone book publishers, all phone books are made from 100% recycled paper and lumber industry detritus like sawdust), I am in favor of an opt-in (or opt-out, however you want to phrase it) program. Besides, if you ban them, what will he-men tear in half to demonstrate their brute strength? An iPad? Sure, there will likely come a day, probably very soon, when the phone book will be obsolete—admittedly, Yelp! or Google is more often than not a lot more convenient (and tellingly the Yellow Pages has an iPhone app)—so why not let it fall into disuse of its own accord?