The Library has too many directories to list in one table, so we divided them into several sub-lists These telephone directories are arranged by city or region, then by year, and then by title. The type of directory is indicated by the words "residential", "organizational", or "both" for directories that include both business and private numbers. The notes field is used to provide further information about the directory.
This finding aid represents our holdings as of May 2011. More recent phone books are also available, please use the Ask-a-Librarian system to ask us that we look for them if you need them.
Freely Available Online Directories
Besides using printed telephone directories, a reader may find it helpful to use current online directories and digitized old address and telephone directories available for free on the Internet.
Current Online Telephone Directories
- Das Telefonbuch External – This website provides telephone numbers of persons and businesses. Includes reverse phone number look up.
- Das Örtliche External – This is a database of business entries. There are also listings for private individuals if they own a business. Provides addresses, maps, telephone numbers, and website address of the business when available.
- Gelbe Seiten External – Yellow Pages. Allows search by business owner, name of business, type of business, federal state, town, and smaller geographic areas.
Historic Address and Telephone Directories
- Adressbuch in der DigiBib External – In this online list links are provided to appr. 1,800 address books old enough to be no longer under copyright protection and that have been digitized. The list is arranged in alphabetical order by the name of the town.
- Historic Addressbooks External – data sets transcribed by volunteer collaborators are made available through a common database for free-of-charge online queries
- Berliner Adress-, Telefon- und Branchenbücher 1707-1991/1992 External – Historic address and telephone directories for persons and companies for Berlin and surrounding areas. The address directories can be downloaded or searched in for free. The system allows full text search.
- Hamburger Adressbücher External – This database allows searching for people, addresses, and organizations in digitized address and telephone books published between 1787 and1966 for Hamburg.
- Münchener Digitale Bibliothek External – Addressbooks from Bavaria are made available by the Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum. Includes address books for towns, such as Nürnberg, Regensburg, and München (1845-1918). Also includes address books of companies that export goods, organized by company name, and by goods (Adressbuch der Export-Geschäfte), and business directories (Handels- und Gewerbe-Adreßbuch).
- Sächsische Adressbücher External – the Historische Adressbucher is a database in which one can search for people and street names from address books from Dresden, and a few other Saxon towns. Information for all of Sachsen is not yet available, but they keep adding data for various towns.
- Adressbücher und Telefonbücher Thüringer Städte External – address and telephone books of towns in Thüringen (1895 - 1950). Town address books provide information about house owners, companies, and organizations. This website makes digitized address books available for viewing, downloading, or searching.
