Submission of material for the web site

• Permission. JGen rules state that all materials submitted must be accompanied by a hand signed Donor Permission Form. A simple form for submission is available as is the more complex form preferred by JewishGen. Please select one of these forms, print them and submit them to the Rozhnyatov Coordinator Tom Weiss. .If you are not the primary source of this material and the material is copyrighted or held by a source which requires permission to use, you need to obtain that permission.
• Citations. There are many ways to write a bibliographic citation; it is a matter of taste. For the sake of consistency, we shall use the following.
  • Book. First list the authors or editors with last name followed by initials. Then the date in parenthesis, then the title in italics, followed by the publisher and address. Here is an example:
    • Davies, N. (1996). Europe: A History, Oxford University Press, New York, NY
  • Journal article. An article from a journal or magazine is cited similarly to a book and should have the authors as for a book, the year in parentheses, the title of the article, the standard abbreviation for the journal in italics, volume, pages as follows:
    • Yodaikan, L. (1999). Tackling the lack of surnames in 18th-century Russian records. Avotaynu, 15, 17-19.
• Graphics.
  • Graphics knowledable member. All graphics files meant for the web site will be compressed files in order to conserve memory space on the server (computer) that houses the site and to minimize the time it takes to display a page. We will use either the GIF format (for graphics that do not contain continuous tones) or JPEG format (for graphics that contain continuous tones). Generally scanned images of photographs contain continuous tones in black and white or in color and will be in the JPEG format. Thus, if you are submitting graphics for the web site and you are familiar with the different file formats then send the compressed files.
  • Scanning knowledgable member If you have knowledge of scanning but are unfamiliar with various graphics formats, then the safest thing to do is to scan your photograph or document and save it as an uncompressed file. One convenient such file is a TIFF file. Then we can compress it and put in on the site.
  • Member without access to a scanner. Users that either have no access to or competence with a scanner should send their photographs or documents to their shtetl leader or to the web master for scanning. It might be advisable to make a copy of irreplaceable, original material and send the copy provided it is of good quality. Excellent copies of color photographs can now be made relatively inexpensively at many photographic shops. The original material will be returned to you promptly.
• Text.
  • Computer expert members. Since the ultimate destination of the text is a web page, the optimal file format for all text files is an HTML file.
  • Word processing maven members. If you use Microsoft Word or any file format that can be read by Microsoft Word you can send a formatted file. A formatted file contains all the text you type plus all the instructions to your particular word processor which describe the appearance of the document which is called the format (e.g., font types and sizes, color, locations of tabs, locations of paragraphs, spacing between lines, bullets, etc.). A formatted file is what you save if you simply select SAVE in your word processor without making any special effort to do otherwise. However, most word processors have additional options for saving a file. Some Web friendly word processors produce HTML. If HTML files are not an option, then the next best option is an unformatted text file with no line breaks. This file includes just the text you type. To summarize, the different file formats in order of desireability are:
    • Most desirable --- HTML file.
    • Desireable --- text file without line breaks.
    • Least desireable --- a formatted Microsoft Word compatible file.
    • Undesireable --- a formatted file in an obscure word processor that is not compatible with Microsoft Word.
  • Some tips that will make the process more efficient.
    • Submit text in the same form as indicated on the site. That way it does not have to be retyped.
    • Do not use carriage returns in any of the text files. Let the email program or your word processor determine line breaks. That way the returns will not have to be removed before the material is put on the web.
    • Check over your material to eliminate grammatical errors, typographic errors, spelling errors (use a spell checker if possible).
    • Do not use jargon and avoid most abreviations which will make your material more difficult for viewers.
• How to send files. All files, graphics and text, can be sent as attachments to email. The material should be sent to the appropriate shtetl leader or directly to the web master if there is no shtetl leader for a particular shtetl.