Somehow City Hall leaders have written the second version of “Gone with the Wind.” It’s called the city’s phone directory.

Look in any Lawrence phone book and you’ll find about 170 phone numbers for the city, listing everything from animal control to zoning.

“There are times I don’t even know the right number to call with a question,” City Commissioner Boog Highberger said. “If I don’t know, I bet there are a lot of other people who don’t, either.”

Someday, though, residents with questions about city services may need to just remember three numbers: 3-1-1.

City Hall staff members are researching the creation of a 311 phone system that could work much like the 911 system, except that it would handle only nonemergency calls and questions. Other larger cities, such as Kansas City, Mo., have phone systems that allow people to do a variety of tasks such as establish water service, describe dogs at large and report potholes by dialing a three-digit number.

The Kansas Department of Transportation has a 511 system that provides callers from anywhere in the state with updates on road conditions, construction detours and travel weather information for the Kansas Turnpike and any interstate, U.S. or state highway in Kansas and Nebraska.

“It would really be a customer service enhancement,” said Jonathan Douglass, a management analyst for the city. “People only would have to know one number to get their questions answered. If you look in the phone book now, there are about four columns of city numbers.”

But it could be a costly enhancement that almost certainly would add more than three numbers to the city’s budget. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., is in the planning stages for a 311 system, which would be the first in the state. Current estimates call for $1.3 million in startup costs and about $600,000 per year in annual operating costs.

Douglass thinks the cost in Lawrence would be significantly less than in Wyandotte County because call volumes probably would be about half what they will be in the Kansas City area.

“I think it could be worth a fairly sizable investment,” Highberger said. “We would have to weigh it against our other needs, but I think it has the potential to really improve our service and make government more accessible to people.”

The system’s price tag comes from the technology required to accept and track the calls, and the costs to employ and train operators who can answer a variety of questions. Douglass said the number of needed operators would depend on whether the system would operate 24 hours per day and include other entities, such as Douglas County and the Lawrence school district.

Creation of a 311 system also could provide momentum for a separate effort to create a 211 system, which would be designed to provide information on social service agencies in the community.

Marcia Epstein, director of Headquarters Counseling Center, said her group has an extensive database of information about social service agencies in Douglas County. Her counselors share that information with people who call Headquarters seeking information, but she said a 211 system would make it easily accessible to more people.

“We feel like we would really have a huge head start on it,” Epstein said, noting that Headquarters’ phone lines – 841-2345 – already are staffed 24 hours per day. “But we don’t have the technology, and that would be a huge expense.”

Highberger said he wanted to explore whether there would be cost efficiencies by setting up 311 and 211 systems at the same time. If not, he said creating a 311 system as a test case would be his priority.

Commissioners will be briefed on 311 and 211 systems at their 6:35 p.m. meeting today at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.

Douglass said the earliest that city commissioners likely would take any firm action on a system would be during the 2008 budget process, which begins in the summer.