Page 204 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Unit 10: Directories

would often be an alphabetical listing of businesses that could be arranged by street or district Notes
within the city or by the service offered by the business: brokerage house, insurance firm,
blacksmiths, accountants, and so on. Many companies would be profiled with full-page spreads,
and others might have drawings or photographs of their products.

To account for more frequent change, city directories were published annually. Some directories
were supplemented at different times during the year to keep up with an even faster pace of
change. Many city or local publishers produced these directories, but a few larger publishers
tackled larger. Perhaps the best known are the Polk City Directories, which continue to be published
to this day.
The emergence of city directories followed closely the early development of libraries. The
information contained in early directories was in high demand, and a marriage between the
directory and the library was a logical development. Libraries became important consumers of
city directories and significant users or newer directory products that emerged in the later
19th century and first part of the 20th century. Telephone books, listings of professionals, guides
to associations, and increasingly more specialized directories made their way into libraries.
Directories rapidly became essential components of reference collections, often among the most
consulted sources in libraries of all types.
For more than a century, library directory collections were almost exclusively made up of print
publications. Many libraries kept long Mils of serial directory publications in their reference
areas. Crowded shelves of multi-coloured directories were a common site in reference collections
throughout most of the 20th century. Many of these collections became unwieldy to use and
difficult to update and maintain. Some directory collections were put on microfilm or microfiche,
allowing libraries to keep more extensive back runs of historical directory collections. However,
the difficulties of reading this format and the expense of microform readers prevented microform
from becoming a widespread option for libraries seeking to maintain large directory collections.
Since the 1980s, computer technology has made serious inroads into the primacy of print directory
collections. The speed, storage, and computational advantages of computers were obvious to
both librarians and users. In the past few decades, many directories have appeared as online
databases, on CD-ROMs, and most recently, on the Web.

Notes Directories available commercially or for free on the Web are causing many
librarians to look closely at their investment in print directories.
The shape of directory collections in libraries is changing rapidly, with many libraries opting to
cancel print directories in favour of comparable electronic versions. Even subscription-based
Web directories are feeling the pressure of resources that are freely available on the Web. For
many questions, answers from freely available Web resources can suffice, leading to less reliance
on subscription-based print and electronic resources.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. ....................................... rapidly became essential components of reference collections, often
among the most consulted sources in libraries of all types.
2. The shape of directory collections in libraries is changing rapidly, with many libraries
opting to cancel print directories in favour of comparable ........................... versions.

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