The university yearbook is becoming a tradition of the past as an increasing number of college yearbooks shut down operations.
Facing its third straight year of declining sales, the University of North Texas' yearbook, the Aerie, will be available to students for the final time this August.
Tom Rufer, director of the North Texas student union, said lack of student interest and an inability to locate a new adviser for the yearbook factored into the decision to stop publication. The student union had advised the yearbook staff since 2000, but the union was unable to find a replacement for the retiring assistant director.
The closure comes in the midst of declining student interest in university yearbooks across the country.
UT's Cactus Yearbook editor-in-chief Eleanor Bartosh and Texas Student Media Director Kathy Lawrence will meet with Student Government Vice President Frankie Shulkin Tuesday to discuss ways Student Government can help promote the yearbook on campus and improve sales to students.
Although Cactus sales have hovered at about 2,000 copies a year for the past two or three years, the publication holds several institutional advantages that its North Texas counterpart lacks. In 1920, the yearbook was incorporated into Texas Student Media, the largest student media operation in the country.
"My experience has been, in 25 years of advising and watching this around the country, that once a school lets a yearbook drop it's very hard to get it started again," Lawrence said.
At its peak in the 1980s the Cactus sold around 14,000 copies every year, Lawrence said. Those sales enabled the book to put more money into reserves than it has had to take out in ensuing years.
Bartosh said the publication is looking to expand its Web presence to keep pace with college-age students.
"That's what people our age are interested in now - Facebook and MySpace," Bartosh said. "We have to do our best to try and keep up with what our students and our audience are interested in."
The Cactus is supported by book sales, purchases of pages by campus organizations and small subsidies from Student Government and the student services budget.
The last copy of the Cactus sold for $75 this year and will cost $85 next year.
Lawrence estimates that if students automatically received a yearbook with the chance to opt-out when paying tuition and other fees on UT Direct, sales would rise to anywhere between 15,000 to 25,000 copies every year.
"The only schools really prospering are those where the book is automatically included in student fees," Lawrence said.
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