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Date:         Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:54:12 EDT
From:         OTTOP@NYUACF.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Who has used phone # CD-ROMs?

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

Dear Marion,

There have been discussions about various telephone directories on CD-ROM
on LIBREF-L and  CDROM-L in the past 6 months, which I assume you can find
in the archives for each list. I don't have much experience searching
listserv archives, so I can't tell you more precisely how to access these
discussions.  However I am happy to summarize our experiences at Brooklyn
Public Library for you.

The Telephone Reference Division at Brooklyn Public Library has been using
Phone Disc since last summer and UMI's Pro Direct Business for the past six
months.  Although Telephone Reference has been purchasing Phonefiche (phone
books on microfiche) from UMI for a number of years, they prefer checking
the residential listings on Phone Disc first because the product is less
cumbersome and involves searching only one alphabet.  Metropolitan areas
with several phone books (i.e., New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) can be
time-consuming to search via hardcopy or microfiche.

Telephone Reference recently received the new version of Phone Disc.  The
previous version had some large gaps in coverage, but the new version looks
much cleaner.  Phone Disc has contracted with Digital Directory Assistance
to produce their future updates in a timely manner, and they are slowly
integrating more information from telephone books.  However, this edition
is still based on telephone books and "other sources as an interim
measure."  It still requires two CD-ROMs to cover the entire country, one
for the eastern half and one for the western half.  Recycling a search from
one disc to the other is very easy, though it is often not necessary
because our patrons usually know the geographic area which needs to be
searched.  Phone Disc permits name searches to be limited by address or
telephone number, but direct searching by telephone number (criss-cross) is
not permitted.

Phone Disc also offers another CD-ROM  database for businesses and
organizations called Quick Ref+.  However, for these types of questions
Telephone Reference prefers to use UMI's Pro Direct Business, which they
feel is more comprehensive.  Pro Direct also includes a wide variety of
organizations in addition to just businesses.

Our Social Sciences Division has begun to provide public access to Phone
Disc as well.  They were shocked to discover that New York Telephone wanted
them to begin paying thousands of dollars for the very limited number of
phone books we usually receive.  We hope that Phone Disc's residential
listings will be a cost-effective substitute for the phone books.  However,
we have not yet widely advertised Phone Disc, so it is not yet very heavily
used.

Incidentally, I have spoken with individuals at the Free Library of
Philadelphia and at the District of Columbia Public Library.  The Free
Library will not purchase Phone Disc even though they are facing the same
cost increases, because they feel the level of inaccuracy is too high
(based on the previous version).  D.C. used to subscribe to Phone Disc but
discontinued their subscription when the software changed in 1990.  They
believe the current software is no longer user-friendly (which I would
dispute).

Be aware that DAK, a mail-order firm, has recently been marketing Phone
Disc, though it never seems to use the actual name in its advertising.
Several subscribers to CDROM-L informed me that DAK's product is actually
the Winter edition of Phone Disc.  However, they were happy enough to have
access to slightly outdated information at a much cheaper price.

There are two competitors to Phone Disc.  NYNEX is selling a set of CD-ROMs
with residential telephone listings for the entire country, including
criss-cross capability.  Needless to say, the cost is many, many thousands
of dollars.  However, I believe they also sell smaller portions of their
database for individual states or regions.  The other product is ProPhone,
the description of which sounds very similar to PhoneDisc.  In fact, the
man in charge of ProPhone is a former executive at PhoneDisc.  PhoneDisc
appears to be very upset over the similarity of ProPhone and its marketing
technique.  Telephone Reference has been sufficiently curious to subscribe
to ProPhone, and I have promised to summarize their comments to CDROM-L.

As far as other products, I saw American Business Information's CD-ROM
at the National Online Meeting in New York last June.  I was not impressed,
given that the only listing in their database for the Brooklyn Public
Library is one of our smallest branches.  Neither the Central Library nor
our 58 other branches were listed, and even the phone number for the single
location listed was incorrect.  When I pointed this out to the salesperson,
he had the gall to swear that every single piece of information in the
database had been verified by telephone!

I now realize I've probably summed up all the discussions from CDROM-L and
LIBREF-L, so you may not need to search the archives.