THEY say it’s a shrinking world but unfortunately not everything shrinks to our advantage.

In 2007 the A4 sized Thompson Local had 394 pages. By 2009 it had shrunk to 226 pages. It is now significantly smaller in size and has less than 200 pages. The 1,176-page Yellow Pages was very useful in 2009. The new handy size was less useful in 2011 with only 760 pages and now it’s down to 504 pages.

The local phone directory has also shrunk consistently from 568 pages in 2009 to 408 pages just four years later.

The result of these shrinkages is less content, fewer sections and fewer listings with each new edition being less and less useful than the previous edition.

We don’t all have laptops and smart phones to look up information and I do wonder how long it will be before these publications vanish altogether.

Dale Edwards, Newborough Street, Bootham, York.