New telephone directory ready

Press, 9 March 1982, Page 1

New telephone directory ready

Sitting on a mountain of them, Mr Tony Burrows, a Post Office supervisor, displays the new telephone directory, which will come into use on April 23.

Deliveries of the new directories have started in central Christchurch and suburban deliveries will follow progresively. About 239,000 copies of the new directory have been printed. One popular feature of the new directory should be the return of a separate section for Government departments. In the 1980 directory, these departments were listed in the main alphabetical section. A survey by Post Office staff showed that Christchurch people preferred the separate section. A copy of a pen-and-ink drawing of St Helens homestead, Hanmer Springs, appears on the pale-green cover of the new directory. The idea for this came from

a former Chief Postmaster in Christchurch, Mr D. Page, according to the acting assistant manager for telephone services for the Post Office in Christchurch, Mr B. W. Plows.

The new directory is heavier than the .1980 edition. Supplies are arriving in bundles of seven instead of eight, as in previous years. Pages of alphabetical listings total 448, compared with 431 in 1980, and yellow pages total 583, compared with 527 in the previous edition.

Subscribers will receive one directory a household. Those with an extension telephone can apply to the Post Office for a second directory.

Mr Plows said that faulty binding on some directories had been reported but the extent of this would not become known until the directories came into use. Faulty directories would be replaced.