The library should have a reference desk where a librarian can help them figure out where to find the information they need. Even small libraries should have someone
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Your main character might also check an encyclopedia before consulting the reference librarian. You've probably seen encyclopedias. They consisted of a bunch of books which covered stuff beginning with different letters of the alphabet -- say A-D in the first book, F-J in the second and so on. There were also yearly updates that covered new things so the encyclopedia stayed current. Some families had encyclopedias at home, but not everyone. And most young singles would not have one at home. If your main character doesn't have an encyclopedia, he or she would either go to a friend's house to use theirs, or go to the library.
And the main character could ask at a some of the local banks. Since banks provide loans to many types of businesses, a good banker will know a little bit about a lot of the businesses in town. (I don't think it works this way any more, but it did back then). So if the letters relate to something in town, one of the local bankers might be able to help figure out where they are from.
If they are literally just looking for "what organisation does this three letter abbreviation stand for", they are stumped, because they won't know when to stop looking. I can't help thinking the same would be true in the era of the internet.
Assuming that they know enough to confirm that a given instance of these three letters is what they seek, then business, trade and professional directories would indeed be the first place to look. I'm from the UK but I don't think it would be too different from the US. Most public libraries would have reference copies of all sorts of profession-specific directories. The names of practitioners and companies in that profession would be listed in alphabetical order and broken down by specialism. That was how you found people to use their services
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Phone books (especially of major cities) also have government organisations listed, so they could look through those as well if they think it might be a government organisation. As well as the library, post offices often have phone books for all major cities and local areas. Most businesses will have phone books for any area they do business in.
Your character is completely fucked. While there certainly are options like the phone book and industry-specific journals, and any library would have the former (only a really good library would be likely to have stacks of historical industry journals as they take up toom and if they weren't commonly accessed they wouldn't be on microfiche) your character has no idea where to start, or where to stop
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Oh no no I know. He's supposed to be fucked. (Don't feel bad for him - he's sort of an ass.)
His idea of this is more he found these letters poking around someones stuff, he knows the person well enough to at least have a vague idea what they'd be associated with. So it's a case of he doesn't know what he's looking for but suspects he'll know it when he sees it or at least narrow the field down.
He's not going to solve this one with what he has, but I want to at least establish and show he's trying and desperate (he will get something else that answers it later).
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I had ruled those out since it didn't seem likely they would contain anything useful for this sort of thing.
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Assuming that they know enough to confirm that a given instance of these three letters is what they seek, then business, trade and professional directories would indeed be the first place to look. I'm from the UK but I don't think it would be too different from the US. Most public libraries would have reference copies of all sorts of profession-specific directories. The names of practitioners and companies in that profession would be listed in alphabetical order and broken down by specialism. That was how you found people to use their services ( ... )
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I just really wanted to at least cover his leg work, show he's pursuing the thing.
Trade and professional journals aren't a bad idea. I hadn't thought of those.
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His idea of this is more he found these letters poking around someones stuff, he knows the person well enough to at least have a vague idea what they'd be associated with. So it's a case of he doesn't know what he's looking for but suspects he'll know it when he sees it or at least narrow the field down.
He's not going to solve this one with what he has, but I want to at least establish and show he's trying and desperate (he will get something else that answers it later).
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