Directories

Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Dennis Strigl told U.S. lawmakers that a planned mobile-phone directory was a "terrible idea" and that he wouldn't participate because it would jeopardize the privacy of his 40 million customers. "There is no groundswell of customer demand for a directory that would justify putting privacy in jeopardy," Strigl said at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, which today may vote on a bill to govern how such a registry would operate.

A listing of child-care services in Costa Mesa has been mailed to all city residents and is also available at no charge at City Hall. The directory contains listings of day-care programs and youth recreation programs available in the city, as well as a checklist of items for parents to look for in a child-care provider.

State schools chief Bill Honig on Friday warned high school students and their parents to be wary of mailed solicitations to purchase "Who's Who" types of honor roll directories from companies that misrepresent themselves as educational outfits.

* The Product: The phone book. It's more popular than Judith Krantz and Danielle Steel combined but, let's face it, you aren't going to stay up nights to see how it ends. Things might change, though, because the phone book has tried to transform itself--as if it were a Krantz heroine. No longer just a big book of numbers, directories include a wide range of consumer information and have sparked a boom business of their own. The Yellow Pages Publishers Assn.

The city's Child Care and Youth Services Committee, which has languished for two months, will embark on two new projects: setting up a directory of child-care services and creating an intracity network of agencies that help young people. Committee members, who presented their plan earlier this month to the City Council, said the network could help reduce gang, drug, vandalism and theft problems in the city. The directory will be distributed citywide.

Have some of your recent calls to directory assistance gotten downright weird? Credit the change to last year's Telecommunications Reform Act, which is supposed to encourage competition between long-distance carriers and local phone companies. There have been a few unforeseen side effects.

Citing unanswered privacy questions about a controversial directory being developed by the mobile phone industry, Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.) on Thursday called for congressional hearings into the matter. The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Assn. is assembling a cellphone directory that would list as many as 75% of the nation's 163 million mobile phone users. Privacy advocates worry that the directory will make mobile phone users vulnerable to telemarketers and e-mail spam.

The calls come in every 21 seconds, and you're falling behind if you don't answer each one. "Hello, this is Rad, what city?" you say, about 1,100 times a day. You and the 300 other Pacific Bell directory assistance operators around you don't have your own desks. It's a different station every day. Even the name you use on the phone is a pseudonym. So you perch photos of your kids on the keyboard in the mornings, then lift them off again when you go home. The children smile up at you.

* Disaster Hot Line (800) 525-0321 TDD (800) 660-8005 This number has been set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for general information. * * FEMA Telephone Registration Line: (800-462-9029 TDD (800) 462-7585 Begins the process of registering for federal aid by telephone. Be prepared to provide your name, address, Social Security number and those of other occupants in house at the time of quake. Several languages are spoken on both these lines, including Spanish.