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Muncie and Indiana telephone directories

 Collection
Identifier: MSS-343

Scope and Contents

This collection includes telephone directories from AT&T Yellow Pages, Central Union, Indiana Bell, McLeodUSA, Rutter, SBC, and Yellow Book USA for Muncie, Indiana and surrounding areas ranging from 1946 to 2015. These telephone directories document personal, listed telephone numbers as well as information on local businesses.

Dates

  • Creation: 1908 - 2015

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Ball State University Libraries make every reasonable effort to provide accurate information regarding the copyright status of materials held by Archives and Special Collections. Patrons may scan items or request a reproduction of one or more items in the collection; however, it is the responsibility of the patron to evaluate whether or not the intended use complies with copyright law.

In cases where the University holds copyright to collection materials, staff must grant written permission for most commercial uses of the collection. Staff will not grant permission in cases where copyright is owned by other individuals or organizations.

Historical Note

The first operational telephone was invented in 1876 and the first telephone exchange was established in New Haven, Connecticut two years later in 1878. In November of that year, a directory was issued for the exchange. Telephone service and coverage steadily spread throughout the nation and by the turn of the century, over a million telephones were in service in the United States. The expansion in telephone use resulted in the production of a growing number of telephone directories. The earliest telephone directories did not include numbers, but rather listed homes and businesses with a telephone. As the number of telephone exchanges grew, the telephone exchange name system, which relied upon the abbreviated exchange names as the leading component in unique phone numbers, emerged. The current all-number calling system represented in telephone directories was not established until the late 1950s.

Extent

7 Cubic Feet (7 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Custodial History

This collection was received by Archives and Special Collections as a series of donations between 1946 and 2013. Additional directories were received as a gift from Jeffrey R. Koenker in 2014.

Accruals

Further additions are expected.

Related Archival Materials

Materials relating to this collection may be found in the following collections in Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries, Muncie IN:

Muncie City Directories

Muncie Rural Route Directories

Processing Information

Collection processing completed 2014/03/12 by Janay Parker. EAD finding aid created 2014/03/12 by Janay Parker. EAD finding aid revised 2014/03/14 by Stephen Jones. Collection reprocessed by Mackenzie Stahl on 2019-01-08.

Genre / Form

Status
Completed
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the Stoeckel Archives of Local History Repository

Contact:
Alexander M. Bracken Library
2000 W. University Avenue
Muncie Indiana 47306 USA