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I'm wondering what the correct term for a roster of names (e.g., for a class, team or department) that contains each individual's picture.

My high school called such a roster a "face book" because theirs consisted of an actual book for the whole school.

  • Because of facebook.com, this phrase is misleading (i.e., it now carries a much different connotation).

  • Further, the popularity of Facebook.com makes trying to confirm the usage of the word "facebook" as I've suggested difficult to do using online searches.

So I thought perhaps "face sheet" would work, but this is apparently another name for a cover letter.

There's got to be something better than "roster with pictures."

  • Is "Photo roster" used very often?

I'm looking for the phrase that is used most ubiquitously.

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  • Yearbook is what we called those when I was in high school in the 90s. Do they still make yearbooks these days?
    – thomj1332
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 21:59
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    Use "facebook", which designates exactly what you are talking about; the online this is slang (which arose, I think, in the 70s). The online behemoth took its name from this. You may confirm this use online by looking for books published before 2004, when facebook.com was founded.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 22:04
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    @thomj1332 "Yearbooks" or "annuals" are published at the end of the year as a memento/record of people and events; a "facebook" is typically a directory with photographs for use during the year.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 22:06
  • Thanks StoneyB for confirming that this was more common than just at my high school. Your comment was essentially my understanding of the situation...But again, with Facebook.com being so popular, using the term "facebook" now carries a much different connotation.
    – theforestecologist
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 22:51
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    Probably not what you want, but what came to mind for me was rogues gallery.
    – Steve Lovell
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 4:44

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a roster used for more regular access to people's names/appearances or used for getting to learn people's names.

I believe it's called a photo directory. It gets ~423,000,000 results on Google - here's are just two examples:

Each year, the pictures taken of you, your classmates, faculty and staff during orientation find their way into the Law School Photographic Directory, which becomes available soon after fall classes start. The Photo Directory is available online and will give you a good start on associating names with the faces of your student colleagues and recognizing the faculty and staff.

https://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/studentservices/handbook/genlinfo/Pages/Law%20School%20Photo%20Directory.aspx

enter image description here

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/faculty-photo-directory

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  • I think other than stubbornly just using the phrase "facebook", this is certainly a very understandable and straightforward approach. Thanks for the suggestion! +1
    – theforestecologist
    Commented Dec 3, 2020 at 20:37

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