Muncie and Indiana telephone directories
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
- 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.
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.
- Directories Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- 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
Alexander M. Bracken Library
2000 W. University Avenue
Muncie Indiana 47306 USA
libarchives@bsu.edu