OU Phone Directory Old News

Times are changing and the University of Oklahoma is changing right along with them. The OU campus phone directory is finally becoming a relic in the digital age.

Tuesday, October 20th 2009, 6:00 pm

By: News 9


By Gan Matthews, NEWS 9

NORMAN, Oklahoma -- Times are changing and the University of Oklahoma is changing right along with them. The OU campus phone directory is finally becoming a relic in the digital age.

The OU campus phone directory has been around for while.

“The answer is we don't really know when it started. But it's pretty much for the modern age of OU. We've always had a phone directory,” said Nick Key with OU Information Technologies.

But few, if any, students seem to use it anymore.

“Zero actually, I mean like I never use it, ever,” said OU student Tyrrell Hearn.

“I've never used it, ever. I don't think I ever even noticed it," said OU student Jenny Winters.

This week OU announced, because of the economy, it will no longer publish the traditional directory.

"The phone directories are about 250 pages apiece. We usually print about 12,000 copies of them each year. That equates to about 3 million pieces of paper each year just on phone directories alone,” Key said.

Instead, students and everybody else will be encouraged to find contact information on OU's Web site, something that students are doing already.

"I'll usually look online, or usually I'll email them, instead of calling them,” Winters said.

"I doubt that any of our freshmen or sophomores are the type of people who are going to say ‘I need information. Where's the book?'" Key said.

The directory is still useful as a doorstop or for swatting flies. But like the dinosaur or the dodo, it will soon join be extinct.

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