april06b.indd


Donald K. Hartman and Charles A. D’Aniello 

Subscribe to an online directory today, 
frustrate a researcher tomorrow 
Are
print
directories
dead?



Because directories are intimately concerned 
with human beings and their organizations, 
they serve almost as many uses as the imagi­
nation can bring to bear on the data.— 
William A. Katz1 

Are print directories dead? It certainly looks that way according to “The 
Future of Directory Information.” Author 
Marydee Ojala explains that the 2006 
edition of the venerable Thomas Register 
of American Manufacturers will be the 
last printed version.2 All future Thomas 
directory information will be available 
exclusively online via ThomasNet (www. 
thomasnet.com). 

ThomasNet’s decision to go e­only is 
reasonable, considering its clientele is com­
prised of manufacturing companies and 
business people. Other directory publishers 
will undoubtedly find a pure online option 
financially appealing, as well. But super­
seded directories have a value and utility 
that transcend their immediate purpose. 
They are windows on the past and portals 
to paths that enable historical researchers 
to travel into history with a detail long since 
forgotten and to peer through the lenses 
of their predecessors. 

This is true of all superseded reference 
works—from encyclopedias to dictionaries 
to directories.3 By capturing a snapshot at 
a point in time, they provide a context, 
which, although often imperfect, is none­
theless useful and often irreplaceable. In 
fact, the universes—defined by both inclu­
sion and exclusion—that are captured by 

directories and other reference resources 
offer a view of the world from a particular 
perspective, whether they are published by 
or for a particular association, organization, 
or industry, or for general use. This is im­
portant for future historical explorations. 

Is there a need for old directories? 
Are old directories used? There is ample 
proof that they are. Historians regularly 
use city directories to study the physical 
movement and social and economic sta­
tus of individuals and groups, as well as 
the evolution of communities. And using 
the Ayer directory to quickly determine 
what was published in a particular com­
munity, at a particular point in time, has 
long been a standard approach used by 
historians and librarians alike. So impor­
tant is this resource that a signifi cant run 
of years has been digitized by the Library 
of Congress.4 

But access to the past is not solely 
needed by historians; other professionals 
use history also. To show change or to 
argue that a trend or period of stability 
has emerged, one must know what has 
happened over time. Sometimes there are 
questions of fact that a directory can re­
solve, or it may suggest resources or people 
to consult. Lawyers may use information 

Donald K. Har tman is associate librarian, e -mail: 
unldon@buffalo.edu, and Charles A. D’Aniello is arts 
and humanities librarian, e-mail: lclcharl@buff alo.edu, at 
Lockwood Memorial Library at the University at Buff alo, 
State University of New York 
© 2006 Donald K. Hartman and Charles A. D’Aniello 

222C&RL News April 2006

mailto:unldon@buffalo.edu
http:thomasnet.com


from superseded directories to prove a 
point; business people may use it to sug­
gest a marketing trend, and physicians, to 
help understand the spread of a disease. 
The end of access to historical sources must 
have profound consequences for those 
seeking to understand the present. Imagine 
a world in which people act only on what 
they see or what is considered current. 
To play off an observation by comedian 
George Carlin: It wouldn’t be fun if, all 
at once, everybody just forgot everything 
they knew.5 This may seem a profound fear 
for such a simple thing as a directory, but 
the past is lost in little pieces over time 
until recovering it, even on the simplest 

of levels, may not be wholly possible and 
certainly not economical. 

Proof of the use of directories in a di­
versity of professional settings is abundant 
and easily obtained by searching such 
databases as the Web of Science, America: 
History and Life, JSTOR, ABI/Inform, 
Business Source Premier, Science Direct, 
Digital Dissertations, Project Muse, West­
law, Google Scholar, Google Book Search, 
and the “search inside the book” feature 
of Amazon.com. 

The Thomas Register is still important 
How important are older editions of the 
Thomas Register? They are important 

Reference desk questions 

These questions were asked at our refer­
ence desk; all were answered by using old 
print directories: 

•  How many female employees did 
Rich Products Corporation have in 1967? 
Directory used to answer question: New 
York State Industrial Directory. 

We were surprised that a manufacturing 
directory actually broke employment down 
by gender, but apparently this was not an 
uncommon practice in the 1950s and 1960s, 
though today manufacturing directories 
tend not to include this breakdown. (The 
Rich Products entry even listed how many 
women worked in the office and how many 
worked in the plant.) Answer: 54 women, 33 
of whom were offi ce workers. 

•  What supermarket chain had a store 
located in the Boulevard Mall (Amherst, 
New York) in the late 1960s and early 
1970s? Directory used to answer ques­
tion: Directory of Shopping Centers in the 
United States. 

This question could also have been an­
swered by using the Polk’s Buffalo North­
east Suburban Directory, but the Directory 
of Shopping Centers, besides listing tenants, 

also provided the date the mall was opened, 
its architect, number of acres and parking 
spaces, and estimated sales volume and 
noted that the building was air conditioned 
and had auditorium facilities.Answer:Acme­
American Super Market. 

•  Was the Pennzoil Company listed 
on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite 
Stock Price Index in 1992? Directory used 
to answer question: Standard & Poor’s 
Register. 

On the surface, a deceptively simple 
question, but finding a list of companies 
listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 for pre­
vious years is not as easy as it appears.The 
Standard & Poor’s Web site only provides 
recent constituents (though you can pay to 
access older information). Old print editions 
of Standard & Poor’s Stock Reports and 
Security Price Index Record would have 
answered the question (if your library saved 
them!), and the online database Wharton 
Research Data Services can generate a list 
of companies that have been on the Stan­
dard & Poor’s 500, but this product is very 
expensive and beyond the budgets of most 
libraries. Answer: yes. 

April 2006  223 C&RL News 

http:Amazon.com


enough to be purchasable in microfi che.6 

(The term register has an air about it more 
rarefi ed than the term directory, and there 
are other directories traveling under aliases: 
for example, Books in Print, Encyclopedia 
of Associations, and World of Learning.) 
A database search run in November 2005 
in the Web of Science found 27 articles 
that cited the Register. A search of JSTOR 
found 50 articles (excluding book reviews) 
mentioning the Register. Most of the citing 
journals are from the fields of business, 
law, or economics; but, surprisingly, there 
are also cites from American Art, Ameri­
can Speech, American Journal of Psychol­
ogy, and the Modern Language Journal. 
A search of Westlaw uncovered 90 court 
cases that cite the Register, and in ABI/In­
form Global—limited to scholarly journals 
and omitting articles from newspapers and 
trade publications—more than 50 citations 
were found. Searching by “cited source” 
in Business Source Premier retrieved 15 
citations. Further, we found several articles 
where Register citations were embedded in 
the text but not cited as notes. 

Some cites to the Register were to the 
online version. In the future, the verifi ca­
tion of such citations may only be possible 
if an archival version—presumably a paper 
version—is produced and retained. Implicit 
in this concern is the need to preserve 
editions: snapshots across time, whether 
in electronic or hardcopy form. Reference 
tools published electronically only in 
continuous revision will make this impos­
sible.7 And reference tools published only 
as online databases may present a host of 
preservation problems. 

This is noted in Building an Electronic 
Records Archive at the National Archives 
and Records Administration (2005), edited 
by Robert F. Sproull and Jon Eisenberg: 
“Even when the underlying database itself 
is amenable to preservation, displaying 
information from that database for users 
poses enormous challenges. For example, 
the information displayed might be the 
output of analysis software that has gone 

through multiple revisions—what was 
actually viewed on any particular day is 
a function of the version of the software 
running on that day.”8 

It is not inconceivable that verifying a 
piece of information from the 19th century 
may be easier in the future than verifying 
information from the 21st century. Librar­
ians and historians9 have pondered the 
challenge of preservation in the electronic 
age for some time, and librarians may have 
influence on the formats in which informa­
tion is published through their purchasing 
decisions. 

Reliance on databases 
Hundreds of libraries currently subscribe 
to Gale’s Ready Reference Shelf, an online 
database that culls entries from 14 of Gale’s 
most popular reference directories (among 
them are Directories in Print, Encyclopedia 
of American Religions, Encyclopedia of As­
sociations, Gale Directory of Publications 
and Broadcast Media, Publishers Directory, 
and the Research Centers Directory). Many 
subscribers to the Ready Reference Shelf 
also maintain subscriptions to the print 
directories included in the online product; 
however, some libraries have cancelled 
those same print sources because of their 
online availability. Gale’s Ready Reference 
Shelf provides current information only, so 
librarians who made the decision to cancel 
their print subscriptions also decided that 
old directory information is neither needed 
nor very important, though they most likely 
came to that conclusion unconsciously. 

On the other hand, perhaps, though 
aware of the importance of old print di­
rectories when they made the decision to 
cancel, the need to save space took pre­
cedence over other concerns and cautions. 
Sitting in a small library, they reasoned that 
larger libraries would save older editions. 
A good micro or local decision, but, at 
a macro level, if the majority of libraries 
turn solely to online databases for their 
directory information, publishers will stop 
publishing print resources—and without 

224C&RL News April 2006



print there will be no “library of record” for 
directory information and probably no edi­
tions, as we understand the term. 

Databases offer powerful advantages over 
print, and we are not suggesting that libraries 
live without access to resources, such as Ref­
erenceUSA.10 Nevertheless, many directories 
are so vital to historical researchers that they 
should be retained through their editions. 
Remember, even if your library decides not 
to save superseded directories, by subscrib­
ing to a print directory you will be offering 
an economic incentive to publishers to keep 
publishing in print, thus enabling research 
libraries that do save old directories to con­
tinue this important archiving role. 

Guidelines for print 
The following are suggested print subscrip­
tions and retentions for a core directory col­
lection; however, a specific library’s mission 
may well require the acquisition and retention 
of other directories. 

• City directories. If your institution can 
afford to subscribe to only one print directory, 
your local city directory should be acquired. 
While oftentimes thought of as only useful to 
genealogists, city directories are heavily cited 
by a diversity of scholars. 

• Media directories (newspapers, ra-
dio and television stations, periodicals). 
Media directories are copiously cited; their 
geographical arrangement and subject clas­
sification are a boon to researchers. For U.S. 
coverage, acquire Gale Directory of Publica­
tions and Broadcast Media (or a combined 
subscription to Bowker’s News Media Direc­
tory and Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook). 
For international coverage, acquire Benn’s 
Media Directory. 

• Serials directories. Although peri­
odicals are included in both Benn’s Media 
Directory and Gale Directory of Publications 
and Broadcast Media, neither offers the de­
tailed information that is included in Ulrich’s 
Periodicals Directory or Standard Periodical 
Directory. 

• Book publishers and books. Book 
publishing is still an important industry, as 
well as a measure of intellectual output and 
focus. Acquire and retain Publishers, Distribu­
tors & Wholesalers of the United States and 
Literary Market Place. Copies of Books in 
Print should also be saved, but when print­
on­demand technology becomes more com­
monplace, the whole concept of in print will 
change, since books residing on publishers’ 
servers may never go out of print. 

Articles using Thomas Register 
Some examples of recent articles using the 
Thomas Register as a data source: 

Rajshree Agarwal and Michael Gort,“Firm 
and Product Life Cycles and Firm Survival,” 
American Economic Review 92, no 2 (May 
2002): 184–90. (Agarwal has written several 
articles for which the Thomas Register is a 
key source of data.) 

Darren Filson, “Product and Process 
Innovations in the Life Cycle of an Indus­
try,” Journal of Economic Behavior & 
Organization 49, no. 1 (September 2002): 
97–112. 

Steven Klepper and Kenneth L. Simons, 
“Industry Shakeouts and Technological 

Change,” International Journal of Indus­
trial Organization 23, nos. 1­2 (February 
2005): 23–43. 

Carol Rice and Ellen F. Heineman,“Appli­
cation of a Method to Evaluate the Quality of 
Work Histories and Document the Exposure 
Assessment Process,” American Journal of 
Industrial Medicine 44, no. 1 (July 2003): 
94–106. 

Michael F. Smith, Richard A. Lancioni, 
and Terrence A. Oliva, “The Effects of 
Management Inertia on the Supply Chain 
Performance of Produce­to­Stock Firms,” 
Industrial Marketing Management 34, no. 
6 (August 2005): 614–28. 

April 2006  225 C&RL News 

http:erenceUSA.10


• Standard & Poor’s Register of Cor­
porations and/or Dun & Bradstreet Mil­
lion Dollar Directory. Having an historical 
run of either of these titles is necessary for 
any institution interested in business his­
tory. For international coverage, acquire and 
retain Dun & Bradstreet Principal Interna­
tional Businesses. 

• S t a t e  m a nu f a c t u r i n g  d i r e c t o r i e s .  
State business directories cover thousands 
of companies not included in either the 
Million Dollar Directory or the Standard & 
Poor’s Register. 

• Encyclopedia of Associations. Many 
organizations have an Internet presence and 
are easily found using a search engine and, 
therefore, it can be argued that older edi­
tions of the Encyclopedia of Associations are 
actually more valuable than the most recent 
edition. However, the historical “snapshots” 
of universes of associations at given points 
in time, which are provided by superseded 
editions, argue for their retention. 

Notes 
1. William A. Katz, Introduction to Refer­

ence Work, vol. 1 (New York: McGraw­Hill, 
1992), 316. 

2. Marydee Ojala, “The Future of Direc­
tory Information,” Online 29, no.5 (Septem­
ber/October): 38–39. 

3. There is a rich literature, which either 
directly or indirectly explores the past (or 
past views of it) by using old reference ma­
terials. For some examples, search America: 
History and Life and Historical Abstracts. 
Some general insight on what is to be 
learned from the study of old reference 
materials is offered in Charles A. D’Aniello, 
“A Sociobibliographical and Sociohistori­
cal Approach to the Study of Bibliographic 
and Reference Sources: A Complement to 
Traditional Bibliographic Instruction,” in 
Conceptual Frameworks for Bibliographic 
Education: Theory and Practice, eds. Mary 
Reichel and Mary Ann Ramey (Littleton, Co.: 
Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1987), 109­133. 
For a valuable overview of the history of 
reference materials, which cannot help but 

suggest uses to which they might be put 
by contemporary scholars, see: Bill Katz, 
Cuneiform to Computer: A History of Refer­
ence Sources (Lanham, MD and London: The 
Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998). 

4. The N. W. Ayer and Sons American 
Newspaper Annual (which went through 
various evolutions and corresponding title 
changes across its long history) is now 
available in digital form for 1869 to 1919 at 
www.loc.gov/rr/news/news_research_tools 
/ayersdirectory.html; was last published in 
1986; and is continued by the Gale Directory 
of Publications and Broadcast Media. 

5. The actual quote reads: “Wouldn’t it 
be fun if, all at once, everybody just forgot 
everything they knew?” George Carlin, When 
Will Jesus Pass the Pork Chops? (New York: 
Hyperion, 2004), 51. 

6. An advertisement for backfiles of the 
Register (1905–1983) from Research Publica­
tions observes: “Covering the years 1905 to 
the present, this comprehensive reference 
tool is a valuable historic, social, and techni­
cal aid for researchers of American business, 
industry, and commerce.” From American 
Quarterly 36, no. 1 (Spring 1984), U7 (un­
numbered). 

7. Print editions of Encyclopaedia Britan­
nica continue to be published, along with 
the more current online resource. The en­
during value of older editions is evidenced 
by the online searchable version of the 1911 
edition. 

8. Robert F. Sproull and Jon Eisenberg, 
eds., Building an Electronic Records Archive 
at the National Archives and Records Admin­
istration: Recommendations for a Long­Term 
Strategy (Washington, D.C.: The National 
Academies Press, 2005), 19. 

9. For an excellent general overview from 
an historian writing for other historians, see 
Roy Rosenzweig, “Scarcity or Abundance? 
Preservation in a Digital Era,” The American 
Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 2003): 
735­62. 

10. ReferenceUSA is an online directory 
of more than 12 million U.S. public and 
private companies. 

226C&RL News April 2006

www.loc.gov/rr/news/news_research_tools