So, here's a list of the phone books I have gotten this year.

The ones I keep:
DEX White & Yellow Pages (Vancouver and PDX versions)
Mid-Columbia Directory (I get this in the mail, it's G-dale's phone book [and for most of the Gorge])

And all these others which I almost invariably redirect upon receipt to /dev/null:
Verizon's phone book
Verizon's little phone book
Verizon Camas/Washougal (Why I'm getting that one in my area of the Coove is beyond me, and I know I didn't request it)
DEX's little phone book
Regional Telephone Directory (a no-name-brand independent made by a company just off 164th, in the office buildings by Freddy's and the Chinese/Japanese restaurant, it's called "YPPA".....I think it's owned by McLeod's now but I'm not certain......)
Yellowbook (some off-brand I've only seen in the last coupla years)

So, out of all of those, only two (four, if you count the fact that one's actually a two-volume Portland phone "book") don't end up as scrap paper before their expiry date. And you know what? I thought we were supposed to be *saving* paper nowdays. Six additional unnecessary (and in my case, unwanted) indie/regional volumes seems flat-out wasteful to me!

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Old phone books are also excellent city histories. I've always found it interesting to see what businesses existed in by-gone years and where. Most public libraries keep phone books from many decades back. I wonder in the future what records of that kind of thing there will be.