So, I get home from work today and there’s a phone book on my doorstep. Well, sadly for this book I happen to live in the Information Age and I can get my information from the Internet faster than I can find it in that book, and without getting printing ink on my fingers doing it.
That made me think – especially as I threw it on top of my 3-volume set of Denver area phonebooks. Why do I even have these things? I can’t be alone in this idea. In this era of “go green” and “save the forests” legislation, why do I need 8000 pages of phonebook in my closet if their only purpose is to sit there for a year and be picked up for recycling?
I want to stump for the equivalent of a “do not call” list for the delivery of phone books. I look around my neighborhood and just imagine how much money, effort, energy, etc. can be saved by only giving people who want these things a copy of them.
In the Information Age – where 411 is being replaced by a free service on wireless phones, where dexonline.com is faster than walking downstairs to the closet, where Google can give me directions, advice, reviews, and customer feedback – why do these dinosaurs exist?
Are you with me? Can we really cut down on printing these by offering a demand estimate per locality at press time? After the jump, you can read my letter to Tom Tancredo, the House rep for my district.
