A central office based service and apparatus whereby personal electronic directory (PED) subscribers may call a special number from any DTMF telephone to access their personal directory. Such users dial a special telephone number, enter their personally selected code for their directory and follow the system prompts which explain all available options and the methodology of use. The personal code is changeable by the subscriber at any time. The PED provides subscribers the ability to store names and numbers through audio signals which are preferably the subscriber's voice. The subscriber then may access his PED remotely from any DTMF telephone and have a requested name and number repeated back in the subscriber's own voice. Each entry is addressed by a portion of the name chosen by the subscriber. In case of multiple entries under the same name portion the system provides for seriatim search and announcement of the entries under that address until an affirmative response is entered by the calling subscriber. As an option the subscriber may have the number automatically dialed. The system provides subscriber access to the PED for changing, erasing or addition of entries at any time from any DTMF telephone, or of changing their personally selected code.