Sometime over the weekend, this (below) was delivered; neatly placed on the front porch in a tidy package, secured from the elements in a plastic bag, one of this year’s versions of the phone book arrived. It is two and one-half inches thick. The pages are smaller than they were last year – each page of tiny type measures about 7 x 8 3/4 inches.

Not all of them are delivered to the doorstep; this one wasn’t.

The book contains a slew of yellow pages (great ad selling job by the sales team!; more on that later in this article); a couple of blue pages; white pages with incomplete listings of telephone numbers held by persons and businesses and some ancillary information.

Some time ago, Columbia news, views & reviews asked, “Who uses phone books pages?” Really, with a few exceptions, when considering the “tiny type” and the wholly inaccurate and out-of-date information, who uses yellow pages.

Good information: What to do following an incident at one of the area’s nuclear facilities is important information.

Consider: In the blue pages, there are a whole lot more listings for Columbia Borough than there are at the Columbia Borough Website or the white pages of the book. Columbia has a deputy EMA officer? Really? Wonder who it is?

What’s that … the white pages have a listing for the Columbia Bowling Center!

Consider: That when looking for a telephone for the Columbia Historic Market House in the white pages, there’s a listing … but no listing in the yellow pages. Oh, yeah, there’s also a listing for the Columbia Drive-In. Want to find out what’s playing? Give them a call – 717.684.7708!

About those yellow pages sales! The sales representatives did a really good job selling so many advertisers into this concept. Businesses get a year of unchanged message in a medium that fewer people resort to for information (that’s likely out-of-date or inaccurate). Another one, Verizon’s, came some time ago; it arrived with a bonus mini-version edition of the larger page size – 8 1/2″ x 11″ – book. It’s interesting to note that one book had two full pages of advertising while the other (the one with more ad pages) had none. Both listed the Gundel Funeral Home in the white pages; curiously Verizon’s mini-version didn’t list Gundel.

Suggestion for people who continue to use the phone book for out-of-date-information; inaccurate  or incomplete listings and a cumbersome format, you’ll need to get one of these.

Or if you wanted accurate real-time information you could “google it” or use one of the thousands of free applications on your smart phone! But you could keep the almost totally worthless refrigerator magnets (glued to the front covers of the books)!

NOTE: Columbia news, views & reviews apologizes for the lack of clarity in the above photos. We seem to have misplaced the camera and these are smartphone pics. We’re looking for the camera.