Online Yearbooks: Welcome to the Digital Age

I am dating myself here but do you recall serving on yearbook when we used real, hard copy photos?  It was necessary to label each photo and tell where it was to go on the template you chose from a manual provided by the yearbook company. You also had to type and print out the captions for each photo and indicate which caption belonged with each photo. Submissions had deadlines and had to be snail mailed to the yearbook publisher in order to arrive by the stated deadline. Everything for each page-labeled photos, captions and template all went into one large white envelope for each page. Then the several pages for that deadline were put into a box and sent to the yearbook company. If someone had told us online yearbooks were in the not-so-distant future we’d have been shocked

When digital cameras arrived the process was streamlined. We didn’t have to “crop” photos by marking the corner of the photo section we wanted to use. Photos could be cropped on the computer and emailed directly to the yearbook company attached to an email describing the template and the copy for that page. Envelopes, photographs, tagging and mailing were all eliminated.

Copy was done on a word processor and sent as an email attachment to the company with instructions as to the page. Instead of counting words and agonizing over space, copy could be inserted right into the template of choice via a software program bought from the yearbook company. You simply typed your  copy into the space and adjusted for font and size so that it fit. Typos were virtually eliminated by spellcheck and the fact that they did not have to be retyped.

Wow! Didn’t we think we had arrived? We had no inkling that hardcopy year books were about to become dinosaurs.

With the number of graduates from high schools, colleges and universities who move from city to city or even country to country hardcopy year books became less appealing. I don’t believe they will ever become truly extinct. Some grads will always want hardcopy yearbooks for book shelves and coffee tables. Libraries, school offices and police departments still want hard copy yearbooks.

However, with the digital age, mobile Internet devices, and social networking, more and more people want electronic versions of things like warranties, manuals, novels, and even yearbooks. It’s possible then to carry the yearbook in your smart phone, tablet or laptop. You can read it while travelling and call it up to check something anywhere and anytime.

Online yearbooks are more than convenient. There is a significant cost saving by opting for an online version. When hard copies do not have to be printed printer’s costs and materials are saved. Just as Amazon now sells more e-books than softcover and hardcover books combined, yearbook companies are selling increasing numbers of online yearbooks.

Online yearbooks can provide wider options in visual presentation. Covers can be animated. Team photos have been replaced by slide shows and video clips of the teams. Online yearbooks have more visual appeal than their hardcopy counterparts..

For more information, I recommend Memory Lane yearbooks.