Telephone directory

In telephony, a telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organisation that publishes the directory.

Reverse directories

A reverse directory, or criss-cross directory, is a telephone directory in which the entries are in order by address (first by city, then by street, then by house number), and were used to find out the name of a subscriber with a particular address or to find the neighbors of a particular address. They were fairly common until the 1960s as a separately published book, or sometimes included at the back of the regular telephone directory with each section on a different colour paper. Printed reverse directories have become less common with the availability of telephone databases on CD-ROM and on the Internet with advanced searching features.

Related Topics:
1960s - CD-ROM - Internet

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They are not well known to the general public since they have generally been available on a limited basis to telephone companies or government officials, although genealogists and private investigators know which public libraries have them in their collection. In addition, some telephone companies have made the information generally available through little known services, such as the "2080 service" in Chicago (now discontinued), where a call to the exchange and the number 2080 produced an operator who would give the name and address of any other number in that exchange. But such services remain online.

Related Topics:
Genealogists - Private investigator - Public libraries - Chicago

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Instead of looking up a number, a call to directory assistance (4-1-1 in the NANP) will give the same results if a book is not available. However, there is usually a significant charge for this.

Related Topics:
Directory assistance - 4-1-1 - NANP

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In the United Kingdom, Ireland and many other countries it is illegal to perform a reverse lookup from a phone number, although some companies have attempted to sell reverse directories. CD-ROM telephone directories supplied by telephone operators are now sold in an encrypted format that only allows lookups from a name and address.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Ireland

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In Jersey, the local paper phone book has a form of reverse directory with the phone number and then the name and address, for example:

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• 712345 ? Mr A Smith, 1 Any Street, St, Helier
• 712346 ? Mrs B Johnson, 2 Any Street, St Helier

It exists after the regular directory in the phone book.

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