A
yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a
schoolA school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
or a book published annually. Virtually all
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n and
CanadianCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
high schoolsSecondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
, most
collegeA college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
s and many
elementaryAn elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
and
middle schoolMiddle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
s publish yearbooks. The term may also refer to a book of statistics or facts published annually.
US and Canada
ElementaryAn elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
and
middle schoolMiddle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
s may have a designated staff member who is in charge of putting together that school's yearbook, with or without the help of the students. These books are usually considerably smaller than a
high schoolSecondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
or college yearbook.
High school yearbooks generally cover a wide variety of topics from academics, student life, sports and other major school events. Generally, each student is pictured with their class and each school organization is usually pictured. A high school yearbook staff consists of students with one or more advisors; who also hold another position for the school. The yearbook staff can be chosen in a variety of ways, including volunteer-only (its own extracurricular organization), as an academic class, or it could be assigned to the entire senior class.
Colleges that publish yearbooks follow a similar format to
high schoolsSecondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
. Some include detailed recaps of
footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
and
basketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
games. College yearbooks are considered by the
Associated Collegiate PressThe Associated Collegiate Press is the largest and oldest national membership organization for college student media in the United States. The ACP is a division of the National Scholastic Press Association...
(ACP) to be a form of journalism. ACP holds the annual Pacemaker competition for college yearbooks as well as other collegiate media outlets.
Canada's oldest yearbook is the
College Times, issued by
Upper Canada CollegeUpper Canada College , located in midtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is an independent elementary and secondary school for boys between Senior Kindergarten and Grade Twelve, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The secondary school segment is divided into ten houses; eight are...
in
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
; it has been published continuously since its founding by
John Ross RobertsonJohn Ross Robertson was a Canadian newspaper publisher, politician, and philanthropist in Toronto, Ontario....
, then a student at the college, in September, 1857.
Classmates.com is planning to digitize the yearbooks.
Australia
Yearbooks published by Australian schools follow a slightly different structure to their North American counterparts. Australian yearbooks function as an annual magazine for the school body, with a significant focus on objectively reporting the events that occurred during the schooling year. There is less emphasis on discussion of student life, and the creation process involves minimal student involvement. Yearbook staff predominantly consist of only one or two school teachers who serve as editors in chief.
Australian school yearbooks are predominantly created on A4 paper size, featuring a softcover style front-and-back cover, typically 250 or 300 g/m² density. Hardcover style yearbooks are not as common, and it is a phenomenon yet to pick up in the country due to cost reasons.
To substitute for the lack of student life coverage in school yearbooks, many senior students in Australian schools publish a separate Year 12 yearbook. The Year 12 yearbook typically provides up close and personal coverage of student personalities through profile questions, a large number of personal and group photos and collages, quotes, awards, and humorous light-hearted entertainment. There is rarely coverage of academic, sport and school related matters as these topics are considered in the school yearbook. Year 12 yearbooks are created almost entirely by school students with a school staff member, typically the grade's year advisor, providing guidance and supervision.
In recent years, companies such as Fusion Books have been servicing Australian Schools with cutting edge online yearbook systems that allow Schools to create their yearbooks collaboratively online. This allows a higher level of student involvement and makes the workflow simpler and easier for all involved.
Publishing
Australian school yearbooks are primarily published with
offset printingOffset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface...
technology, with a mix of colour, spot colour, and black and white pages, depending on the school's budget. In the past, Year 12 yearbooks were simply printed using a
photocopierA photocopier is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat...
, but Australian yearbook publishers have improved the quality of these publications by providing low cost
digital printingDigital printing refers to methods of printing from a digital based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large format and/or high volume laser or inkjet printers...
solutions.
U.S. military
Warships of the
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
often produce a yearbook style publication upon completion of a long deployment (typically six months or more). These books, referred to by sailors as "
cruise bookA cruise book is a yearbook-style publication often produced by ships of the United States Navy upon completion of a long deployment . The books typically contain photos of all the people who were aboard during the cruise, usually grouped by their division or department. There are often candid...
s" are produced on board by the ship's Morale, Welfare and Recreation department and Public Affairs staff, and then printed ashore by the same printing companies that publish high school and college yearbooks. The cruise book of a Nimitz Class
aircraft carrierAn aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
typically reaches over 600 pages in length, as it includes portraits of the more than 5,000 sailors and Marines assigned to the ship's company and embarked carrier air wing.
The Navy's
Recruit Training CenterNaval Station Great Lakes is the home of the United States Navy's only boot camp, located near the city of North Chicago, Illinois, in Lake County. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Command, Training Support Center and Navy Recruiting District Chicago...
in
Great LakesThe Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
also produces yearbook style publications for each graduating division of recruits. These publications are much smaller, as each recruit division totals roughly 80 sailors. The book is called "The Keel" after the part of a ship that is constructed first, as RTC or boot camp sets the foundation for the sailor's career. These books contain a color section common to all books published that year, with a specific black and white section added for each recruit division and their "brother" or "sister" division.
Compilation
Yearbooks are generally compiled by a student committee, which may or may not be advised by members of the faculty. The committee usually has one or more editors who are responsible for collecting and compiling all of the information to be contained within the book, also deciding the layout and allocation of space for each contributor.
Sections
Most yearbooks have a similar format, which includes individual photographs of students; information on activities; sports; and other activities.
People (seniors, underclassmen, faculty)
In the U.S., where a yearbook often covers the whole school and not just the final year, these sections are arranged in chronological order by class (freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior), in either ascending or descending order. Normally each student will have an individual photo of them accompanied by their name and perhaps one or two lines of text. Senior photographs are usually larger than underclassmen's and are often accompanied by text about their accomplishments throughout high school, and their future plans (if known). Also, (in some high schools) the senior's photos will be in
colorColor or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
while the underclassmen photos are in black and white. Frequently, seniors are polled to nominate their classmates for "superlatives" or "class celebrities" (such as "most likely to succeed," "most athletic," "most spirited" and "class clown"), are often published in the senior section. Some private schools and smaller high schools set aside an entire page for each senior. These pages are sometimes designed by the seniors themselves, with each senior submitting a digital or physical version of the page he or she would like featured in the book.
In the UK and other countries, where yearbooks often only cover the final year group and not the entire school, each student may have more space for answers to various questions as well as their photo (or photos). In Year 11 (England & Wales) members are usually grouped by form/class; whilst Year 13 tend not to be grouped in such a way, but instead just appear alphabetically throughout the book. Its common in these markets for each person to have between a quarter and a whole page each, depending on the budget available for the yearbook (as more pages means a higher cost). The editorial team chooses questions for members to answer (such as "Favourite teacher?" or "Where will you be in 5 years time?") and these answers appear alongside member photos. These photos and answers are sometimes also collected online.
Student life
Several pages are often used for pages chronicling activities undertaken by students, such as trips abroad, activity trips, sporting and other special events. These pages often consist of photo-journals displayed with or without captions.
Sometimes members of a yearbook write editorial and journalistic content about life as a student, current events (local, national and international) and other matters of interest to the peer group.
In books having pages in both color and black and white, the photo pages - collages and other groups of photos - tend to be the ones which run in color; the others run in black and white, reducing the publishing costs (and overall purchase price) per book.
Academics/education
Talks about the classes, projects, and more educational aspects of the school year.
Organizations
This section describes student organizations (sometimes referred to as
clubsHigh School clubs, are student-based school organizations, consisting of administration-approved organizations functioning with myriads of tasks, varying on the specific purpose of each respective club. Clubs composed of students, with adults as advising figures to maintain the functionality of clubs...
) and what they do. These descriptions are often accompanied by a photo or photos of the organizations' members. This section sometimes includes a list of the members of each organization.
Sports
Often listed by season or club, these pages chronicle the accomplishments of the school's teams. Along with a short article listing the season's highlights, these pages include team photographs and action pictures.
A U.S. high school yearbook includes pages for all levels—varsity, junior varsity, sophomore and freshman teams—of each sport. Outstanding accomplishments are often included in the front section of the yearbook, in addition to their usual page.
Memorial page
Often, students will have to deal with the death of a classmate or teacher due to
illnessIllness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...
,
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, accident, or other cause. When this happens, a memorial page may be set aside to eulogize the deceased. The page will usually include a picture of the student or teacher, along with a mini biography, a candid pictures from happier times, a brief article explaining the loss and perhaps an inspirational verse or poem written by a close friend. This page can also include memories from teachers, friends, and or family.
Advertising pages
Many yearbooks gain revenue by including a section of ads from local businesses.
Some schools sell advertisements for seniors. Parents, other family members and friends use these ads to congratulate a senior — or group of seniors — for their accomplishments.
Index
An alphabetical listing of everyone included in the yearbook, along with the pages they may be found on. Usually, an editor keeps a master list of who is included on each page, to ensure accuracy. The index is not always included in high school yearbooks, as it can be time consuming to put one together, but due to advancements in technology, programs such as Sonar Bookends and Webdexer have made the task easier.
Colophon
Typically the last page of the book. The
colophonIn publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...
lists staff members and acknowledges. This page includes a brief statement from the editor. Additionally, the colophon includes technical information pertaining to the yearbook such as publisher, total number of pages, paper weight, copyright.
Signature or autograph page
Most yearbooks contain a few pages which will be left blank for people to write messages about the preceding year and summer.
Layout and pagination
Layout is the appearance of the pages, and it may include the following elements:
- The Headline: This is a theme that ties the page into the story and draws attention to the reader.
- The Story/Copy: Consists of several paragraphs, capturing the highlights of a specific department, sports season, organization, etc., from the past year. Often, yearbook staff members will either send out surveys/interview students, teachers and others for comments.
- Photographs: Candid shots of students, suitable to the page's topic and theme. Often, editors seek to include a cross-section of the student body (e.g., classes, races, school involvement, etc.). Included with the photographs are one or more captions, which describe each picture; these often begin with a lead-in
A lead-in is a short phrase, usually five words or less, that starts off a photo caption in a newspaper, high school yearbook, magazine or other publication.Lead-ins are used to catch the reader's attention and "lead in" to the main caption...
.
In the past, most yearbooks were laid out by hand, with photographs physically cropped and placed on layout boards. The work was tedious, and required multiple deadlines and contact with a yearbook publisher. Today, virtually all yearbooks are published using computers, which allows for shorter deadlines and easier editing. Some yearbook publishers have agreements with schools, whereby the staff send photos and copy for layout by the publishing company; the layout is later sent to the school for final editing.
Students typically paginate, or lay out, pages using a computer program such as
Adobe PageMakerPageMaker was one of the first desktop publishing programs, introduced in 1985 by Aldus Corporation, initially for the then-new Apple Macintosh and in 1987 for PCs running Windows 1.0....
,
Adobe InDesignAdobe InDesign is a software application produced by Adobe Systems. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books. In conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite InDesign can publish content suitable for tablet devices...
or Quark Xpress. Students are quickly able to size photographs and place copy, leaving minimal white space behind. Some yearbook companies provide their own computer programs for designing yearbooks. These programs are designed for easy navigation, copy/edit/paste functions, and more. Some people might just put pictures around the writing or have writing over a picture.
Tools
Several software programs exist on the internet to create many yearbook layouts. Features include easy web-based creation of pages, collages, personal profiles, and recordings of specific event situations. These methods of development allow for layout artists, editors, and students to access the layout, speeding up the process of creating the yearbook.
Word processing
Paragraphs of text added to pages, also known as 'copy', are often typed and edited using a word processing program. The copy is then saved to a hard drive or disc and later imported onto the pages. It is also possible to insert a copy straight into the pages, themselves, as they are being designed.
U.S. publishers
Yearbook publishers may send representatives to work with the adviser and staff at each school to assist in the creation of the yearbook.
Yearbook companies typically require that groups of pages be sent periodically, rather than all at once, to the plant. This is done to stagger the work required to complete yearbooks for all the schools they cover. After the editors review each page and make changes, the pages are sent to the yearbook plant – either mailed on a
CD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
or
Zip driveThe Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB....
or sent via the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
If the proofing process is not performed on-line, the adviser and editors receive proofs (typically full size prints) about a week or so after the submission of pages. This gives the school a final opportunity to make adjustments or changes. After all the proofs have been returned to the publisher the requested corrections are made, the books are printed, bound, and then sent to the school for distribution.
Some publishers provide designers and production specialists to lay out the entire book. Some provide comprehensive, end-to-end yearbook publishing services for schools without a yearbook staff or advisor to help put together their own programs.
A number of educational institutions and yearbook publishers operate camps and summer sessions at which student yearbook personnel can learn or polish the skills they need in their work.
Distribution
Often, yearbooks are distributed at the end of a school year to allow members to obtain the books and signatures/personal messages from classmates. In the U.S., those that distribute at this time may publish a supplemental insert with photographs from spring sports and milestone events (such as
promIn the United States and Canada, a prom, short for promenade, is a formal dance, or gathering of high school students. It is typically held near the end of the senior year. It figures greatly in popular culture and is a major event among high school students...
and
graduationGraduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
) and other important events. Many schools at which yearbooks are distributed at or before the end of a school year have a tradition of having students sign and leave notes on each others yearbooks.
Some schools distribute yearbooks after the end of the school year – such as in July, at
HomecomingHomecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America...
(US) in October or another designated time in order to include year-end activities. In some cases, yearbooks are mailed to the parents' homes of graduated seniors.
Digital yearbooks
A digital yearbook is a yearbook holding memories of a given time with a given group of people—most commonly, a school year at a particular school—that exists in digital form.
A digital yearbook contains text, images, audio, and video. While a traditional paper yearbook may contain a few dozen pages, a digital yearbook can contain hundreds or even thousands of pages. The end product of a digital yearbook is either a CD-ROM or a DVD. The first CD-ROM yearbook was created by students at South Eugene High School in 1990.
See also
- List of college and university yearbooks in the United States
- Columbia Scholastic Press Association
The Columbia Scholastic Press Association is an international student press association, founded in 1925, whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques and award programs...
, a university-based association for student editors and advisors
- National Scholastic Press Association
The National Scholastic Press Association is a nonprofit organization founded in 1921 for high school and secondary school publications in the United States. The association is membership-based and annually hosts high school journalism conventions across the country...
, a membership organization for student journalists and advisors
Further reading
- Akers, M. (ed.), Scholastic Yearbook Fundamentals. 1993. New York: Columbia Scholastic Press Association
- Blakely, D. and Evans, C., A Complete Guide to Yearbook Journalism. 1991. Sylvania, Ohio: Advise Publications
- Cutsinger, J. and Herron, M., History Worth Repeating: A Chronology of School Yearbooks. 1996. Minneapolis, MN: Jostens, Inc.
- Hall, H.L., Yearbook Guidebook. 1994. Minneapolis, MN: National Scholastic Press Association