Some yearbooks graduate to the digital age
Imagine taking a high school yearbook and adding action. That black-and-white photo of the football player? Today's students will look back years from now and watch the quarterback throw a touchdown pass. In color. With freeze frame and slow motion.
In years to come, along with paging through hardcover yearbooks for photos of outdated clothes and hairstyles, graduating seniors increasingly will be able to watch videos of classmates and even student-made films that capture the ennui or energy of their glory days.
DVD and CD technology is invading the yearbook market.
In the Boston area, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School has long been ahead of the tech curve. In 1996, the school was apparently the first in the area to produce a CD-ROM supplement to its yearbook. The school switched to DVD about five years ago; most other local schools haven't caught up.
''The kids are highly motivated and they've got access to pretty high-tech resources, and they just like to take advantage of it and push the envelope," said Fred Walker, the longtime yearbook faculty adviser.
The move toward CD and DVD supplements seems to be gaining momentum nationally over the past few years, according to industry executives.
Jostens, a longtime leader in the yearbook business, offers traditional hardcover annuals as well as CD and DVD supplements and even student websites.
The company estimates that of 16,000 high schools in the country, about 1,600 make a CD or DVD yearbook supplement, said Rich Stoebe, director of communications for Jostens.
''They're still in the embryonic stage for schools," he said. ''We believe it will grow. There's a lot of interest."
The main difference between the two media is that CDs are usually played on a computer and generally have less capacity, particularly for video, while a DVD can be watched on a television.
Waltham Senior High School is working on its third CD yearbook supplement, and has not yet considered switching to DVD, said Mark Taipan, 18, one of the CD editors.
Waltham's version includes some video of games and events and offers many more photos than could ever fit in the yearbook, he said. For example, students might gather 100 photos from the prom, but put only 10 in the yearbook. All the rest can easily fit on the CD, he said.
''We can probably end up doing DVDs, or CDs that can hold more video," he said. ''Once we get to the point where we can put anything we want [on DVD], I'm sure it will slowly replace the hardbound books."
Most people interviewed disagreed with him on that point, arguing that there will always be a place for the heavy tomes with glossy pages and superlatives.
''They'll always want a print book," Walker predicted. ''They like to be able to sign it."
Students on the Medfield High School yearbook team plan to purchase a digital video camera, said Aileen Monroe, faculty adviser, so they can incorporate their own video onto a CD next year. This year the students produced a CD with no video, but last year, the debut of the supplement, they included some video from a school musical.
''That's been popular," Monroe said. ''Kids like that because they're also preserving people's voices."
In Medfield's case, the CD fills the gap after the February deadline for yearbook pages. The CD allows the yearbook team to pass on photos from spring sports and events that would otherwise go undocumented, said Monroe.
She said she hopes eventually to take advantage of other technology that allows students to set up websites that they could update all their lives. Monroe envisions students being able to pop the CD into their computer years from now, click on an old friend's Web address, and find out what they are up to and even see photos from their adult life.
While multimedia options have become more popular, the traditional yearbooks have been changing, too: more color, more interesting layouts, bigger emphasis on the prose, and sometimes just bigger, period.
''Right now we're heading in the direction where they do the yearbook similar to magazines," said Ellen Novinsky, faculty adviser for Newton North High School.
Novinsky said her editor has been pushing to do a CD or DVD, but she has resisted. She clearly has a lot of fun with the print version, which this year is 383 pages.
''Every year I try to get her to do it," one of the editors, Ely Goldberg, 17, who will be a senior in the fall, said of putting out a DVD or CD supplement. ''It allows you to do Internet connections and talk to people after high school. I feel like that's the direction yearbooks are heading in."
Like his teacher, he is proud of the print version, which has a host of features that most people probably have not seen in a yearbook. Goldberg pointed to a page with the text of two students instant messaging each other. The two are talking about homework (''hw" in IM speak) and how they would rather be watching the Red Sox game (''i know we r gonna WINNN").
Twenty years from now, the abbreviated language of instant messages might seem quaint.
''We just try to make it so people will read it," Goldberg said of the yearbook.
Several small companies have popped up to try to persuade schools like Newton North to cross the digital divide.
Lisa Baird, president and founder of YoDvD Inc., based in Springfield, Mo., said demand grew tenfold this year at the four-year-old business, which plans to expand nationally later this year.
''It's a visual generation," Baird said.
Still, not everyone is enamored with the idea of an e-yearbook.
''I'm going to do the yearbook because it works," said Amy O'Leary, yearbook adviser for Shrewsbury High School. ''Why do you change things that work? This is what the kids like."
By doing everything manually, and not even using high-tech options for the printed book, the school is able to keep costs down, she said. Shrewsbury's 320-page book costs $30. (Newton's book, which is done entirely digitally, sells for $75, and Lincoln-Sudbury's book-DVD set is $55.)
''Maybe they like holding a book in their hands," said O'Leary.
Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or at lkocian@globe.com. 
