Before there were computers, the internet, cell phones, and social media, we had to do things the old fashioned way. We had to use typewriters with carbon paper if we wanted copies. We had to use a phone book or the yellow pages if we wanted to look up a phone number and then dial the phone. We had to write things down. And, if we wanted to keep track of our contacts, we used a Rolodex. Every office of United Press International had, at one time, a Rolodex full of the contacts that a busy wire service would need to reach a connection, a source.

The true stories in Stories from the Rolodex will take the reader into the world of the working journalist at a time when they used rotary dial phones, looked up phone numbers in telephone books and kept their contacts in a metal Rolodex that sat in an office where everyone could access names, home phone numbers, home addresses, and clues about habits in order to get the story. The Boston Bureau's Rolodex is the junction for the stories in Stories from the Rolodex. The journalists and their words reveal the history and provide anecdotes to major events that took place in the world.