University of Maine yearbook revived after five-year absence

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After an overflowing budget and theft killed the University of Maine yearbook in 2004, it is making a triumphant return.

 Within the next two weeks, Jostens, Inc. — a company that produces high school yearbooks and class rings — will send sales fliers to students’ parents who want to order a yearbook. According to Robyn Honaker, a fourth-year anthropology student and one of the head editors, the yearbook will cost at least $75 and will consist of roughly 224 all-color pages. Jostens was the company used to print the yearbook before 1997.

 The yearbook will be called “The Prism,” which was its name from 1895 to 1997. “The Dirigamus,” published in 2004 by Student Government, was the last yearbook.

 “The Dirigamus was incredibly unpopular,” said Rebecca Morton, the new yearbook’s student life editor. “They put a lot of money into it and only sold about 300 copies.”

The content in The Dirigamus seemed to be the cause of its demise, according to Morton and Honaker.

“It was a very different format from what most yearbooks are,” Morton said. “It was like a magazine. It also focused on the state of Maine as opposed to our school and our student experience. This [new yearbook] is about the students, and what we’re doing in school.”

The Dirigamus cost about $10,000 to produce in 2004, according to then-Student Government Vice President of Financial Affairs Ross Bartlett, because of poor handling of the yearbook by Taylor Publishing Company. A request of $20,000 for a 2005 yearbook was turned down by Student Government in 2004.

In 2004, the theft of two cameras from the yearbook sparked a small claims case in Penobscot County Court.

Now, with Jostens handling sales directly and more communication between the committee and faculty, there is little concern theft or runaway budgets will be a reccurring issue.

“We’re working in closer coordination with faculty. There’s more safeguard so that it doesn’t happen again,” Morton said.

Lack of interest could have been the biggest reason The Dirigamus failed, according to Honaker, who said students in 1997 were “more about being by themselves, not as a group.”

The new yearbook will be a success because of a stronger unification of the student body, according to Honaker.

The yearbook, despite solely featuring 2010 seniors, will be available for everyone.

“The students right now are bringing back things that haven’t been in place in decades. Honor societies have had higher enrollment, Greek Life is growing … students are getting more involved instead of it being a for-yourself kind of student experience,” Morton said.

The yearbook committee will soon be soliciting entries from students, mainly submissions of pictures that represent the UMaine experience.

“We’re really going to be counting on students to be active in putting this together, having a part of it and making it feel like their own,” Morton said.

Along with submitting photos, the committee is looking for two section editors and a team of photographers. Rachel Hirsch, a fourth-year women studies student and the yearbook photo editor, encourages photographers of any skill level to participate. Hirsch said yearbook photographers will assist in capturing athletic events, plays, musical performances and people socializing on campus.

Morton urges all students to participate, not just those graduating in 2010. She is strongly counting on first-year students coming in with high school yearbook experience, but those without any are welcome. Her hope is to have the yearbook committee be something that students can take part in for all four years if desired, not just their last.

Social networking sites like Facebook may be a possible threat to yearbook desirability, but the committee is not concerned it will pose an issue.

 “I like to have a book with actual photos,” said Hirsch. “I think some people struggle in their classes, and some people do really well, but at the same time, I think a lot of people do have a good college experience. … You might want to take a piece of Maine with you along the way, just to have it for memories. People are going to want to remember their college years.”

Morton spoke of the experience of going through parents yearbooks and about how technology is constantly shifting. She said a book is something that will not lose value or importance over the years.

“It’s something you can pull off the bookshelf,” Honaker said.

In addition, with the growing interest in student tradition, a yearbook seems essential to bring the comeback full circle. Morton and Honaker are not concerned yearbooks are “a thing of the past,” .

“It’s more like a classic as compared to old-fashioned,” Morton said.

Start-up funds will be a necessity this year, but the yearbook committee is aiming for self-sufficiency by next year, meaning that at the end of the year, there will be enough money to get started for the following yearbook, and the cost will likely go down. Costs are dependent on how large the final product is and on how many are sold.

Since this year’s committee is starting from scratch and setting a precedent for the years to come, they have a lot to accomplish within the next few months.

“It’s a big process, but it’s going to be worth it, absolutely,” Morton said.

“There are a thousand words within a photo,” Hirsch said. “Fifty years later, if we’re still alive by then, it’ll be nice to have that memory. For some people, a lot of people, it’s the best time of your life.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009, 2:05 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.