A yearbook , also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks. The term may also refer to a book of statistics or facts published annually.
US and Canada
Colleges, elementary and middle school yearbooks
Elementary and middle schools 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 school or college yearbook.
Colleges that publish yearbooks follow a similar format to high schools. Some include detailed recaps of football and basketball games. College yearbooks are considered by the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) to be a form of journalism. ACP holds the annual Pacemaker competition for college yearbooks as well as other collegiate media outlets.
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.
Publishing
Australian school yearbooks are primarily published with offset printing 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 photocopier, but Australian yearbook publishers have improved the quality of these publications by providing low cost digital printing solutions.
U.S. military
Warships of the United States Navy 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 books" 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 carrier 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 Center in Great Lakes, Illinois 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.
Production and distribution
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 color 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 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 illness, suicide, 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 business
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