Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.
The Library of Congress makes available to the public an extensive collection of United States telephone and reverse telephone (criss-cross) directories in many different formats. The inventory in this guide is organized by state and details the available directories by city/town and year.
Directories for each state are alphabetized by the primary city/town, which is noted in bold text throughout the inventory. Secondary cities, towns, and localities are also included. Many directories include listings for nearby communities that may not be listed within the inventory.
The White Pages and the Yellow Pages are indicated as WP and YP respectively.
Current U.S. telephone directories (white and yellow pages) are located on Deck 46 which is entered through Alcove 4 in the Main Reading Room. They are arranged alphabetically by state, shelved before the city and reverse telephone directories for that state.
Since many of these directories contain listings for more than one community, you may need to consult two reference tools in order to determine which telephone book contains the listings for a particular community. The first tool to examine is the Community Cross-Reference Index, found on the consulting table adjacent to the U.S. directories. It consists of two sections: a "Community Index" which identifies the directory in which a specific community's listing can be found; and "Directory Coverage", a list of all the communities covered by a specific directory. If you cannot find a listing for a community in the Cross-Reference Index, consult the card catalog, which is located near the directory collection. The labels on the catalog drawers are color coded for easy identification: blue is for the U.S. telephone directory catalog.
This guidance is for those interested in requesting a large number of print directories housed in the John Adams Building including Street Address, Criss-Cross, Telephone Books, and City Business Directories. These directories are not in the catalog, so there are separate steps for requesting these items. Please read these policies carefully before making a request:
Effective April 4, 2022