1. INTRODUCTION

As the pace of industry, science, and technological development quickened over the past century, it became increasingly probable that someone in a geographically distant location would be trying to solve the same problems you were trying to solve, or that someone in a geographically distant location would have some vital information which impinged on your research or business. The stupendous growth in the telecommunications industry, from telegraphs to telephones to computer networks, has alleviated the problem of being able to communicate with another person, PROVIDED THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO REACH THEM.

Thus, along with the expansion of the telecommunications infrastructure came the development of Directory Services. In this paper, we will discuss various models of directory services, the limitations of current models, and some solutions provided by the X.500 standard to these limitations.