There are few absolutes in life but it seems to us that last year's phone book was the absolute worst. And that's mainly because of the binding. Seems it was poorly put together, and the book just fell apart as the months progressed. Here at 7NEWS where we've been known to throw around phone books, we went through four 2006 books just to get through the year! Usually one manages to hold up, tattered and battered, but intact. So will 2007 be any better? Well we certainly hope so. The 2007 phone book was released today and BTL says it is world class. For the first time, BTL put the phone book together in-house. Suzette Tillet of the Directory Services Department says that it's better in every way.
Suzette Tillet, Directory Services Manager
"We've added a lot of new things to the book. Previously the paper we were using was standard stock paper, it wasn't directory type paper and we're now using directory paper and it is one of the highest grades of directory paper. Actually we're only one of the second to be using this paper in this region.
The municipalities are no longer in the spine of the book. It is now on
the outer hand of the book and we've also added another feature where the municipalities are now indexed where you have a color index. For instance Belize City has its index and it goes right down to all the different municipalities so users will have two ways of finding where they want to find.
Users will know and will see that this book is really really more user friendly as well as more attractive."
But will it fall apart? Well Tillet says she hopes not! She says it was printed by the same company that prints the phone books for the entire region and she expects it to hold up over time. We'll put it though our newsroom test and let you know in a year. The photo on the cover is of Carrie Bow Caye and was taken by Tony Rath.
