Author: Linni Kral
ASOC Senate voted to change the La Enciña yearbook’s publishing company in a meeting Tuesday, April 10. The decision was a compromise for the La Enciña staff, who proposed an extension of their current contract with Walsworth, a yearbook-specific publishing company. At the meeting, ASOC Senate members moved to allow the printing of 400 books from a new publishing company in addition to making digital PDF copies of the book that will be available to download online.
The alternative printing company, Lulu, was proposed by yearbook staff members as a last resort. Lulu prints books without the added benefits offered by yearbook-specific companies. These include technical support, software and software training, fonts, proof and deadline flexibility and custom cover options. La Enciña staff members hoped to avoid this option and requested an additional year to research student desires and reactions to their 2006-2007 publication with Walsworth, but Senate pointed out that 2006-2007 was meant to be a trial year for them.
Debate over the state of the yearbook has been underway since 2001-2002, when La Enciña sold only 12 copies and incurred a large debt. In the two decades prior to this, 300-page yearbooks were printed in black and white by Josten’s publishing company and were distributed to the entire campus at a cost that was covered by student body fees. Budget cuts in the late 1990s sustained an additional charge for the book, as well as reduction of staff, resources and marketing.
“Amanda Gonzalez took responsibility for the yearbook,” La Enciña Editor in Chief and department manager Shannon Watters (senior) said. “She gave it a facelift after the 2001-2002 yearbook.” They switched from Josten’s to Walsworth and saved $12,000 a year to print a smaller, full-color book. Before this switch, there had not been a yearbook distributed in the same year it was made for over a decade.
After the low sales of the 2001-2002 yearbook, research was conducted to gauge student interest in having a physical record of their time at Occidental. 276 students were polled and results showed discontent with the book’s ability to meet student needs and to provide sufficient and equal coverage of the student body or the school. 172 students, however, said they would prefer a physical publication to a digital one. Yeardisk and Yearbank are two digital companies that were researched for La Enciña’s proposal.
“Yeardisc can serve the same purpose as the book and is more and more accessible over the years,” Senior Class Senator Caroline Kim (senior) said. “It is better to have [the yearbook] available to everybody, and if we can do that with the Yeardisk, we should.” There was discussion between Yeardisk, which offers a yearbook disc, and simply putting the PDF files online for students to download. The disc has the capacity for interactive segments but would still cost money in addition to student body fees.
“A PDF would serve as an advertisement for the book,” Watters said. “Yeardisk would be the book.” La Enciña members also raised the issue of training and skills needed for a digital yearbook. They stated in their proposal that Occidental does not currently offer journalism, communications or design programs and that the yearbook allows staff to leave Occidental with marketable software, editing, design and photography skills. A CD-ROM or DVD would require more specialized training that may not be as marketable. They also argue that the digital yearbook lacks staying power because they cannot guarantee that CDs and DVDs won’t go the way of the record, 8-track, VHS and cassette tape.
In recent years, the book has sold 300-400 copies and under the decision made last week, the 2007-2008 yearbook will be available to download in PDF format online as well as 400 copies in print from Lulu.
“Most of the staff will be in L.A. over the summer,” Mindy Chen (sophomore) said. “We plan to design and layout then and spend the school year on better coverage, pictures and marketing.” Chen will co-manage La Enciña next year with Dawn Gruber (sophomore). The staff also hopes to hire a marketing manager. With Lulu, staff said, they will not need to send the book in as early and will be able to include events as late in the year as Dance Production. The books will be sold at the tentative price of $30, nearly $10 cheaper than the current books yet still enabling a four-dollar profit from the $26 Lulu copies.
“It is a good compromise,” Watters said. “The benefits of going with a yearbook company are more extensive than Senate realizes, but Oxy deserves a book however we can get that to them.”
“I feel the decision that was made was satisfactory for all involved,” Sophomore Class Senator Patrick McCredie said. “This will give La Enciña the time to focus their efforts on a new sales and distribution strategy for the coming year and enable them to investigate new publishing opportunities in the future.”
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