Αν και φαινομενικά άσχετο (και φυσικά με πολύ μικρότερη σημασία και βαρύτητα), δείχνει (σε συνδυασμό με την είδηση που παρέθεσε η Κάτια) τη νέα εποχή των ψηφιακών δεδομένων, όπου αποκτούμε (ή μάλλον, μπορούμε να αποκτήσουμε, καθώς παρεμβαίνει αναπόφευκτα ο βουλητικός παράγοντας) πρόσβαση σε όλο και περισσότερες πληροφορίες. Από την εφημερίδα Guardian της περασμένης Τετάρτης:
Online archive of early phone books launched
Τhe first 248 subscribers - from Adam, J&J and Co in Pudding Lane, to the Wright Bros and Co in Great St Helens - could not have known it, but from January 15 1880 the world had changed for ever. A treasury of the oldest phone directories goes online today, tracking the remorseless rise of telecommunications, ending centuries when the peace of the office was broken only by the scratch of quill on ledger, and an era when escaping the world of work was as simple as locking the office door.
The first to go online are the phone books for Greater London, from 1880 to 1984, which contain many startlingly familiar names: Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula and business manager of the Victorian superstar actor Henry Irving, was at Victoria 1436 by 1910. Harry Houdini, the escapologist, was at Gerrard 1312 in 1916: renowned as an inspired self publicist, he had himself listed as Harry Houdini, Handcuff King. By then Buckingham Palace, Victoria 1436, had four phone lines. Four years later Viscount and Lady Astor needed a phone number each at 4 St James's Square to cope with their hectic social lives.
Several unmistakable voices might have answered their private phones: Churchill, RT Hon Winston S MP, was at Paddington 1003 by April 1925; Hitchcock Alfred J at FRObisher 1339 in February 1934, and Sir Oswald Mosley at SLOane 3395 in 1950. Other stars, whose equivalents today could only be tracked down through managers, were listed under their private addresses and home numbers, including John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, all in the September 1930 directory. Joe Orton was listed at 01 359 0448 in 1967, the year he was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell.
The BT archive of historic phone books, which will go online through the genealogy website ancestry.co.uk, is believed to be the most complete in the world. The first directory was issued in January 1880 by The Telephone Company, which had opened the first telephone exchange in the UK the previous year, with just seven subscribers in the City of London.