LAMA Memos:  Guidelines for authors

A.  Requirements for new memos

• This series is entirely electronic, and each new memo must be submitted in electronic form.   The full text of each contribution is made available on a public HTML server.  Paper copies are not routinely distributed, but requests for paper copies may be sent to the memo administrator.
• Each memo must be a single file, and it must be complete (with all figures, tables, etc.).  It may contain hyperlinks (e.g., for references), but the reader or his software should not be required to follow these links in order to have a complete copy of the memo.
• Submissions must be in one of the following formats:
• Adobe PDF (preferred)
• Postscript
• ASCII text (7bit ASCII should be used, without an "extended" character set.
• Once posted, a memo cannot be revised or withdrawn.  This permits the memos to be meaningfully referenced in other documents, and is similar to the situation when a journal article is published.  However, an author may later provide an errata sheet (in electronic form), and a link to the errata will be included with the link to the memo on the index page.  An author may also submit a new memo that superceeds an older one, and the index page can show that the old memo has been superceded.  Finally, upon the request of an author, a memo can simply be marked "obsolete" on the index page.

B.  Guidelines and Suggestions.   Failure to adhere to the following will not prevent a contribution from being posted, but adhering to these points will help readers to make the most effective use of the memos.

• Contributions are not reviewed for content, so any subject may be addressed, but authors are asked to stick closely to the intended coverage area of this series, namely technology for millimeter/submillimeter telescopes.  If your memo does not fit in this category, please consider whether there is another memo series that might be more appropriate.  Ask yourself, "If someone were looking for my memo, is this where is he is likely to look?"
• Each memo should contain a title block on its first page containing, in this order:
• The text "LAMA Memo <nnn>" where <nnn> is the memo number.
• The title.
• List of authors' names.
• Date of preparation.  This date will be included in the index.  It should normally be shortly before the date of submission, but it could be much earlier.
• Optional additional information, such as affiliations and/or addresses of the authors, sponsorship acknowledgement, etc.
• Somewhere on the first page, the following disclaimer should be printed:  "This memo has not been subjected to any review before posting, and its content is the sole responsibility of its author(s).  Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of  the NRAO, AUI, or any other organization."  Suggested location is at the top of the page, above the title block; or it could be a footnote to the title.
• If an abstract is included, it should immediately follow the title block, beginning on the same page.
• The main text should follow the abstract or title block, without skipping to the top of a new page.
• Pages should be numbered.

C.  Procedure for submitting a new memo

Eventually this process should be automated, but for now it will be handled manually via email.  There are three steps:

1. Prepare your memo and make sure that the text, figures, etc. are in essentially final form.
2. Reserve a number for your memo by sending email to lamamemos-owner@listmgr.cv.nrao.edu with your request.  Normally, you will receive a prompt reply giving the next available number and saying that it is reserved for you.  This reservation expires at the end of the business day after the one on which it is granted.  If you have not submitted your memo by then, you will need to request a number again; it may or may not be the same number, depending on whether anyone else has submitted a memo in the interim.  However, if the next number in the series is already reserved when your request is received, your reply will say that your request has been queued and will be granted after all previous reservations have expired or their memos have been submitted; you'll get another email when that happens.  In the unlikely event that the queue gets long, special efforts will be made to ensure that no memo is delayed more than a few days by this process.
3. Insert the assigned number into the title block of your memo, convert it to one of the allowed formats, and then send another email to lamamemos-owner@listmgr.cv.nrao.edu  with the following information (the first 4 items should be identical to information in the title block):
• The memo number
• The title
• List of authors' names
• Date of preparation
• A short abstract
• Location of the file containing the actual memo.  It is preferred that this be a URL to a public HTML server or FTP server, but if necessary the file can be attached to the email.