It is difficult to imagine how we functioned before computers, emails and the internet. In 1975 Kenneth Hudson and Ann Nicholls produced the first edition of The Directory of Museums, published by Macmillan (864 pp), relying solely for their research on the worldwide postal system and 35,000 individual cards on which information was painstakingly compiled. They amassed an interesting collection of foreign postage stamps, and received some amusing or sad replies, two of which are reproduced here.