Material may be sent to the AMCS at its post-office box, PO Box 7672, Austin, Texas 78713, although large envelopes, map tubes, and such are best sent directly to the current editor’s home address. The permanent email address of the editor is editor@amcs-pubs.org.
The current editor is
Bill Mixon
14045 North Green Hills Loop
Austin, Texas 78737
bmixon@alumni.uchicago.edu
The AMCS Activities Newsletter seeks news notes or articles about all original exploration and research on caves in Mexico as well as significant events such as cave accidents. Short news items of one to a few paragraphs go into the "Mexico News" section. They may be accompanied by cave or area maps or a photograph. "Mexico News" also mentions information found in other publications about new explorations and discoveries, and the editor would appreciate copies of such things that he might not have seen. Articles, of greater length (try to keep it under twenty thousand words), should be accompanied by all available cave maps and may include photographs, which will be printed in black and white.
Text may be submitted to the editor on paper or electronically, either as e-mail text or as e-mail attachment in plain text, RTF, or Word (.doc) format. All that is important is that the text be readable, as it will probably be printed out and retyped, so elaborate formatting is pointless. Articles and news items may be submitted in Spanish, to be translated into English for publication. Articles will include a short (100 to 200 words) abstract in Spanish, which the author may supply either in Spanish or English. If the author does not supply an abstract, the editor will write one and have it translated into Spanish.
Names of Mexican people, places, and caves should have the proper Spanish accents (and especially the letter ñ) if possible. The editor can attempt to supply them, but he does not really know Spanish. Accents are especially important on cave maps, where they will be more difficult for the editor to add. Accents are optional on capital letters in Spanish, but please use them even on capital letters on maps, because others who subsequently refer to the cave in ordinary text need to know where accents belong in order to spell things correctly.
Photographs may be submitted on paper or electronically. For photos to accompany news items or articles, color prints about 4 by 6 inches (10 by 15 cm) are acceptable. So are black-and-white prints, but they are usually more expensive and difficult to obtain. Photos may also be sent as slides; duplicate slides are OK for photos to go with articles. Prints and slides will be returned. Photographs submitted electronically should be color scans (despite the target black-and-white printing) with approximately 1200 pixels in the largest direction, moderately JPEG compressed. A typical suitable scan would be roughly 600 KB in size. Other digital formats might be acceptable, but contact the editor first; he does not have a fast Internet connection. Supply caption information, including the name of the photographer, with photographs.
We also seek outstanding color photographs related to caves and caving in Mexico for front and back cover color photos. Cover photos need not be related to articles in the issue. These may be submitted for consideration as small prints, duplicate slides, or electronic files, but an original slide or an electronic image at least 3000 pixels high or wide will be needed for reproduction on the cover. (An image from a 5 MB digital camera will be marginally acceptable if it doesn't need much cropping.)
Most cave maps are printed in black-and-white at full-page size or smaller. If the size and detail on the map warrant it, a foldout may be used, and color foldouts have been published in special cases. In an exceptional case, a folded map in a pocket attached to the back cover might be considered, but these are strongly discouraged, as such maps are easily lost. Black and white maps may be submitted as high-quality photocopies of any size, and the editor will reduce and scan as needed. Maps on paper should not have gray shading, because it will have been half-toned at the source, and scanning here will produce undesirable moiré effects. If scans are sent electronically, they should be at least 300 DPI, compressed, black-and-white TIFFs. Never apply JPEG compression to line copy such as maps. Maps originally computer-drafted may be submitted electronically. The preferred form is exported to black-and-white or gray-scale compressed TIFF, but Illustrator, Corel, Xara, and other formats can probably be converted here. Such maps may include gray areas or gradients, provided that the grays are actually solid colors and not dot patterns, unless the stippling is coarse enough that resampling to a different size will not mess it up. If a computer-generated map is sent as a bit map (gray-scale or black-and-white as appropriate), the resolution should be at least 300 DPI. Note that exporting a computer-drafted map as a Windows Metafile (.wmf) loses all accented letters, so this format is unlikely to be suitable for maps for the AMCS.
The final image area in a single-fold foldout map can be no larger than 10 by 14 inches to allow for margins. Black-and-white or gray-scale foldouts may be submitted in any of the formats allowed for smaller maps. Color foldout maps should be submitted as computer files, such as Illustrator, Photoshop, or TIFF, in final form. The editor should be consulted before a color foldout is planned.
E-mail addresses of authors of articles are published, so supply that information for at least one author. Even if you send only a news item or a photograph on paper, supply an email address if possible, so that the editor can reach you easily if he has questions.