University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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A SELF-PORTRAIT 1973 Blue and Gold Volume 100 Editor: David Flores Managing Editor Head Photographer: Stuart Silberman Manager: Arthur M. Choy Layout and Art: Carolyn Capps, Dana Cole, Brian Connolly, Larry Erickson, Carol Kircher, Karen Leong, Suzanne Norton, Ronnie Riley, Jim Yuen Photography: Jon Befu, Steve Castagnetto, Mike Dorward, Marc Goldstein, Dave Haynes, Mike Hopkins, Dave Hughes, Bob Kennedy, Mike Kvarme, Bob Lesnett, Moke Mokotoff, Mike Simpson, Eric Smith, Andy Stewart, Joe Velson, Rick Wong Copy: Dave Hughes, Karen Leong Secretaries: Laura Accinelli, Denise Mackessy CopjTight 1973 by Associated Students of the University of California FEATURES

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Tides of The last yearbook By David Flores, editor If this isn ' t the last Blue and Gold, then it should be. Time has been good tor the B G, but like all things of old age, the yearbook must finally face the reality that time has run out. The chronic backache and tottering balance can no longer be dismissed as simply signs of a cold. A disease known as terminal irrelevancy set in around 1 968, and should prove to be fatal. Old age is a mixed blessing for a publication. Lon- gevity commands some respect. On the other hand, aging seems to produce an inevitable atrophy which results in the demise of once vital journals. The tastes and demands of the reading public are subject to con- stant change, and any publication seeking continuing success must be sensitive of and responsive to these changes. Publishing history is littered with the remains of many great old magazines which have failed to change with their readership. So it has been with the Blue and Gold. In 1 969, after more than 90 years of publishing health, the B G failed to sell enough books to break even. This began a series of losses which continued unbroken through last year ' s 99th volume, and there is no reason to believe that this centennial issue will reverse that trend. Many varied hypotheses have been put forward to explain this decline in book sales. Bad management, bad publicity, and riots during peak selling periods have all been pos- tulated as the source of the disease. Unfortunately, these hypotheses fail to pinpoint the true nature of the problem: The yearbook market no longer exists. The course of student consciousness over the past decade has not left room for the old yearbook. Concern with community action and organization, domestic social problems, and The War pulled a large segment of the student population away from the traditional aspects of college life which the Blue and Gold repre- sents. The B G was not able to alter its face in response to these concerns. By continuing on as before, making only vague changes as concession to the situation, the Blue and Go d effectively produced a magazine without a readership. Terminal irrelevancy — the absolute failure to provide a product an audience will buy — became fully manifest. This centennial issue represents the most elaborate attempt to make the old traditional yearbook concept work. During the summer, although it was clear to a number of us that some radical alteration in concept was the most likely means of preserving the book, insufficient time to create that concept and structure its financing left us with the old Blue and Gold. We deter- mined that if a traditional yearbook readership existed, it lay in athletics, fraternities and sororities, seniors, the Gal Band, alumni, and other diverse but generally tradi- tional groups. Given adequate publicity, we hoped that our interest in these groups would be justified in book sales But being aware of the sales fate of the last four year- books, we also concerned ourselves with creating new sources of revenue. Sixteen of the 20 pages of Big Game Week coverage were overrun to produce 7000 recruiting booklets for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. Thirteen pages were sold as a block to the Panhellenic Council. We also negotiated with the Uni- versity Office of Public Information and the athletic department to produce an additional overrun of 16 pages (97-1 1 2), which these offices would use for pub- lic relations purposes to sell the University. We tried to incorporate these pages as an introduction to the university section of the yearbook, but this was in a way secondary to the fact that 7,500-plus copies of this booklet meant several hundred dollars of added income for the B G. In Berkeley: A Self-Portrait, we attempted to create an additional source of income, as well as to satisfy the (continued on page 320)