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Old-school yearbook struggles to stay relevant in mySpace age
Local schools looking beyond staid portraits
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Photos by Chuck Kirman / Star staff Oxnard High School seniors line up during a recent lunch period to pick up their yearbooks .
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More from Education: K-12Christina Le sat down with a phone book the first week of school and began cold-calling local businesses.
As Oxnard High School's yearbook business manager, the high school senior hoped selling ads would keep the yearbook class afloat. "They listened to my spiel," Le said, but it has gotten harder to persuade them to buy, and she didn't sell a lot.
Most of the revenue has instead come from selling about 1,050 of the yearbooks to students. That's a 35 percent purchase rate at the school of 3,000, and so far, it has stayed stable and high enough to keep up with costs.
Lagging sales or not, local yearbook classes say they must work harder and get more creative each year to keep the longstanding tradition alive. High school yearbooks generally receive no subsidies and must pay their own way.
Parents might remember them as an end-of-year staple, but these days, yearbooks jockey for popularity with other student must-haves, like gas, prom tickets or the latest electronic gadget.
Students have a lot of choices, and some focus more on short-term rewards. Looking 20 years ahead, it might be fun to drag out a yearbook and reminisce, Newbury Park High School yearbook adviser Ted Warfield said, but a video game might be more fun right now.
Yearbook sales stagnant
Ventura County schools aren't alone. Nationwide, some schools report yearbook sales have increased recently, but others have flatlined or dropped, said Rich Stoebe, communications director at Jostens, which supplies yearbooks throughout the country.
High schools doing well are finding ways to focus more attention on content, he said, and making sure all students are represented in the finished product.
"You don't want a yearbook that could be found at any other high school," said Amisha DeYoung, an Oxnard High senior and member of the yearbook class. DeYoung and the rest of the class took an idea from television this year, using the theme "Unwrapped" and giving students an inside view of the school in the yearbook, which was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
In Oak Park, where many students go to the same elementary and middle schools before heading to Oak Park High, seniors' pictures run side-by-side with their third-grade photos. Students even strike the same pose as in the third grade.
Newbury Park High has a "scrapbook-type" yearbook. Students balance eight to 10 photos on a page, instead of having one central picture and several smaller ones, and have fewer stories and more sound bytelike text.
The changes were based on market research, Warfield said. "We don't design a book for a committee of competition people. We make a book for 16- and 17-year-olds."
Technology backfires
High schools also have dabbled in new technology, but that has proven less successful.
Several years ago, Newbury Park chose to add a computer disc of photos. But then the discs came in late, and the books went out without them. A few days later, the delivery showed up, and the yearbook class announced students could pick up their free disc anytime.
Only about 20 did, and the rest of the discs just sat there, collecting dust.
Warfield asked students for direction, and they said they'd rather have more color than the discs. Schools might eventually abandon large, thick yearbooks for a newfangled product, he said, but he's not holding his breath.
"I remember watching Star Trek' as a small kid, and we were going to be talking to computers in a few years," Warfield said. "How did it go the last time you tried talking to a computer?"
Technology keeps changing, too, creating other challenges.
At California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, officials discontinued the yearbook in the late 1990s and instead created a CD-ROM. Within a few years, however, the computer industry had developed new operating systems and the CDs were mostly unwatchable, said David Grannis, CLU's educational technology director. The university went back to traditional yearbooks, but produced them itself to save money.
Grannis changed things again this year to include more students in the yearbook, increase interest and make it easier to produce.
The school eliminated traditional portraits, asked students to submit their own photos, included pictures from university events and student newspapers, and gave the yearbook away for free. The result: circulation increased from a few hundred to 1,400.
Yearbook economics
At Pacifica High School in Oxnard, the yearbook faces stiff odds. Businesses don't buy many ads in them anymore, and only 800 books were sold among the school's 3,300 students.
"It's purely economic," Pacifica yearbook adviser Shelly Kohnle-Indendi said. People "have other things to spend their money on."
But the yearbook team does whatever it can to boost revenue, which sometimes includes selling snacks and coupon books, she said. Yearbook orders sell for $60 in the beginning of the school year and cost $100 by year's end — an increasing scale used by many schools.
Oak Park High, on the other hand, has an 85 percent purchase rate among students, yearbook adviser Kathie Leggett said, and the class produced the school's largest book ever this year at 408 pages.
The yearbook class did not solicit businesses but did sell 150 pages of senior personal ads to help pay for the book — something Leggett said likely would be more difficult in a lower-income area.
Newbury Park High, which annually makes several thousand dollars above its costs to invest into the next year's yearbook, also chooses to not use business ads. About 63 percent of the student body bought yearbooks several years ago. That number has dropped to under 60 percent.
Kids now grow up keeping in touch online, posting photos and messages on Facebook or MySpace pages, and, Warfield said, students identify more with their own "community" of friends rather than the entire school.
Even when sales fall, students crowd yearbook classes, advisers said. In class, students learn a lot of things about business and the real world. Students learn how to work with people and perform under deadline pressure, said Kirsten Keitel, a senior and yearbook editor at Oak Park.
Kohnle-Indendi said, "I tell them (students) right from the beginning, it's not a class, it's a job. You have to do better than the best you can."
When students want a yearbook, a Web site or disc alone won't do, said Eric Manders, a Newbury Park sophomore. "A yearbook is tangible," he said. "You can hand it to somebody."
Equally important to the content, students said, is the teen ritual of signing yearbooks. It can't be duplicated in the digital world, said Le from Oxnard High. Yearbooks are reliable and show people what life was like for decades or longer, she said.
"Yearbooks really archive what happens in a time span," said Melanie Bryant, the yearbook adviser at Ojai's Nordhoff High School. "I don't think that can be replaced by a DVD or video."
Posted by crazymind20082009 on June 11, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The research in this article was well represented. It was not biased and went for other schools in different others. Good job. I am shocked that at the the start of the year yearbooks are selling $60 and at the end to $100!!!
I think it is sad that a student must choose to either go to prom or have a year book. What happened to being able to share the prom memories in the year book?
Posted by DamnSkippy on June 11, 2008 at 11:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe we don't need leather bound, gold leaf masterpeices? Anyway to cut down the cost so that students & parents can afford them! I remember not being able to afford a year book and was given one as a gift from a teacher! But the thought of getting rid of them all together is so sad.
Posted by 5thGenerationOxnard on June 11, 2008 at 11:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My kids' yearbooks are hardly "leather bound gold leaf masterpieces". Short of going paperback or spiral bound, I doubt you could produce anything much cheaper. Volunteers do the majority of the content and the companies that publish them specialize in that form of printing. Let's face it, costs go up. Have you bought a class ring lately? They aren't $75 any more.
As for the price rising a lot as the year goes on, that is to strongly encourage students to buy early so the school knows how many to order. Any they purchase above those paid in advance of the order deadline are a gamble. Maybe they will sell, maybe they won't. You have to cover those costs.
Posted by rebel123 on June 11, 2008 at 2:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sad to here that yearbooks are going by the way of the dinosaur. It is great experience in the realm of publishing, graphic design, photography,marketing, sales, deadlines, etc. It is excellent real world experience. Many schools have gone to full color, full digital books. Sadly, the fact that they cost so much keeps many kids from buying them. Publishing anything in rearelatively small numbers always costs a ton more than it should. Pity, really. Looking at your high school year books years later is a great thing.
Posted by hotwildflower on June 11, 2008 at 3:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I understand how sentimental some people are about their high school years and reflecting back on them, but I personally haven't pulled out a yearbook since I graduated.
Posted by Sol805 on June 11, 2008 at 5:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Amazing, this was just a discussion in our household on various changes in todays yearbooks. And, wow, the cost of yearbooks are unreal! However, school memories years down the line are priceless. I had a chance to skim through my nieces yearbook from a local high school 2008 and I was amazed of how uninteresting it was on some of the sports and events. Homecoming was always serveral bright colorful pages with the king and his court being separate during basketball season. We thought maybe the yearbook committees should look for ideas from older yearbooks or other schools yearbooks for different ideas. I think a yearbook is something every student should have because as I indicated, "school memories are priceless".
Posted by star on June 11, 2008 at 6:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The yearbook is a dinosaur. It's not even a good way to teach kids the basic skills of graphic design or publishing any more -- if you want to get a job working publishing a newsletter, I promise you won't be using Jostens proprietary software.
If I taught Yearbook, I'd put the kids to work building a database with school information, photos, videos, and the like. They'd publish online, and layout PDFs that could be printed on demand -- it's the same process most yearbook publishers use these days, but I'd cut out the middleman, saving money and negating deadlines. The school would host a static web site, probably with two levels of access, one with registration & a password, one without.
I like having my old yearbooks. But I'd rather have it all online and searchable. And if there were videos, that'd be even better. As would the option of printing a new copy of the yearbook ten or twenty years after graduation.
Posted by lilmamma on June 11, 2008 at 8:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Computers will not always be around. I still have my prom dress and shoes and the pictures. They should make the year books more interesting and include more participation from students. When I graduated Seniors had baby pictures in our year book. If you want to sell yearbooks you have to be creative. Since I graduated from high school I havent opened a year book or saw my diploma. I dont want to admit that Im getting older. After high school your life changes .
Posted by RedTail on June 11, 2008 at 9:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
hotwildflower, I was about to say the same thing. I don't even know where my high school yearbook is. Star, those are excellent ideas. Lilmamma, I think computers will be around for a very long time, and if technology changes, you can always convert a CD into whatever it turns into. Just like the old super-8 tapes and VCR tapes, where you can have them copied on CDs. You could even print out hard copies or have them professionally printed.
I think the problem with yearbooks is that it's usually just a bunch of pics of the really popular kids. Why would the majority of the school want to pay for something that they aren't even in? I think there should be something individualized that a student can make that only includes the people they really care about.
Posted by AnnaWhaat on June 12, 2008 at 11:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Personally I like the old year books. And if taken care of they last forever. Not everyone has a Computer. Its been many years since I was in High School BUT I do know and then get them out and thumb through them. Read what people wrote who signed them etc. Preferably I like the books the way they are.
Posted by theclass on June 12, 2008 at 1:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I graduated 19 yrs ago and I still have all 4 of my yearbooks and I know exactly where they are. I LOVE yearbooks and would be disappointed to see them go to DVD. I love the look of them, the smell of them... My daughter is in high school (going to be a senior), and I purposely send her with the $60 in the beginning of the year so we don't have to pay the $100 at the end of the year... but I'll cut out other "wants" to be able to get her a timeless memory of her high school years. It's just as hard to come up with $60 for a yearbook at the beginning of the school year when you also have to buy: new school clothes & schools, pay for PE clothes, pay for a PE lock, pay for the athletic sticker for the ASB card... But needless to say, it's doesn't matter to me, because in my opinion a high school yearbook is a must have!! Not a big & bulky high school ring.
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