The Madison/Dane County phone book for this year is a generally balanced, though occasionally drawling, collection that never really finds its focus in its 1,700 or so pages. With golf and dental guides as well as the usual yellow and white pages, it seems to meander between passing out information and diluting it in ads. The book, as a whole, tries to prop itself up as a reference work, but would be better to function as a shopping journal.
The problem of the advertising intrusion is most noticeable where Forward Electric Inc., Sears and Murphy, Vaughan, Boller and Pressentin (some lawyer outfit) have taken out stiff dividers in the usual thin paper collection.
The annoying crinkle and possibility of paper cuts does not need to inform someone desperate for a number of who to contact for gutter de-icing or how many millions some attorneys can dish out.
Another fascinating feature of the phone book is the yellow pages index. Seeing as how the thing is, essentially, one large index, the fact that it requires 22 pages to list information about itself is truly intriguing.
Somehow, the alphabetical listing of the phone book's index makes the alphabetical listing of the rest of the thing more palatable. If someone really needs to know that midwives are listed on page 669, it seems like they would be ambitious enough to find them there.
The sheer absurdity of the index in the phone book is compounded by the fact that it is stuck in the middle of the work, instead at the end or the beginning. It is not really noticeable and slips between a coupon section and the beginning of the yellow pages.
While the listing of everything from pasta products (pg. 765) to anodizing (pg. 25) seems complete, it fails with the restaurant listing, directing the reader to another section. Perhaps the only thing more out of place than an index of the yellow pages would be an index of the white pages. Thankfully, there is no such thing.
Rather, the white pages is the same old dependable collection of folks and their addresses and phone numbers. It succeeds with plenty of middle names and distinctions when last names change. Though compact in the presentation of last names and tightly grouped, there is still enough room for the page to breathe. While the thin paper occasionally reveals outlines from the next page, it is still never so much a problem that it distorts the open page.
Where the white pages of Madison and Dane County fail is in the actual content that the organizers of the phone book have no control over. The first third of the alphabet is evenly balanced, never giving one letter too much of a preference though arguably skimping on the C's and F's. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the H's occupy nearly 40 pages, making the name Iaccino a welcome relief. For some strange, and probably unexplainable reason, the Hughes and Hoffmans push this letter into far too many pages.
Later, the M's and the S's also sprawl all over the phone book, though they are often far better names than the H's. Such offerings as McCullick, Mitmoen, Sirikulchayanon and Santolalla make these sections more substantial in their length. However, it gets to be irritating to see all the Sch-names come up in page after page, like some piece of old vinyl stuck in a worn out groove.
Meanwhile, the darker companion to the white pages, the business listing, registers its own set of flaws. The smaller businesses, those that have not taken out ads, often slip into the cracks with a slim font size.
Many quality businesses, such as Banjos by Richelieu and Thebco Siding and Windows are marginalized by the flashy ads and eye-grabbing graphics. These humble businesses are present, but fall to the wayside in the vast yellow monster that is the later two-thirds of the phone book.
Other flaws include the sheer magnanimity of the attorneys' section. As if it was put there to reinforce the fact that there are too many lawyers in America, the collection of lawyers and their ads is depressing in its size.
Requiring more page-curling than any other place in the book, the gaudy orange-marked block of attorneys and their numbers brings nothing but misery to the rest of the yellow pages. Even the pleasing turquoise of the restaurant section cannot redeem the horrors wrought by those damned lawyers.
All in all, the Madison/Dane County phone book for 2003 serves its function as a reference work, but does little else. The listing of citizens comes through, but the yellow pages falls flat. The phone book is best passed up-that is, of course, unless you only plan to look up a number.
