[Note from moderator: while it was not submitted directly to categories, the following announcement will be of interest to many members of the list. The LaTeX/ps is deleted for this mailing, but can be forwarded on request to me.] Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 18:28:54 +0100 (BST) Dear GT and AGT Subscribers The attached letter is being widely mailed to topologists. It announces the launching of a new journal (Algebraic and Geometric Topology) published by Geometry and Topology Publications. Please help to publicise this journal by circulating the letter as widely as possible. The letter is given as a text file, as a LaTeX file and as a PostScript file: ****** text file ***** Fellow Topologists: This letter announces the launching of a new international journal, "Algebraic & Geometric Topology" (AGT). It is intended that this new journal cover all of topology, broadly defined. Papers will be fully refereed, in the traditional manner and using standards which are well-known in our field. Immediately after they are accepted for publication, they will be published electronically. At the end of each calendar year, that year's papers will be published in a paper volume, which will be sold to the libraries at cost. AGT is an ``independent journal", i.e. a journal established by and run by mathematicians, with the cooperation of commercial publishers who will handle the printing and distribution of the paper version. The range of interests of AGT is defined by its Editorial Board. It has two Editors-in-Chief, Bob Oliver for Algebraic Topology and Marty Scharlemann for Geometric Topology. The other members of the Editorial Board are Selman Akbulut, Joan Birman, Ruth Charney, Fred Cohen, Alexander Dranishnikov, John Etnyre, Mario Eudave-Mu\~noz, David Fried, John Greenlees, Ian Hambleton, Hans-Werner Henn, Kathryn Hess, Stefan Jackowski, Akio Kawauchi, Goro Nishida, Tomotada Ohtsuki, Fr\'ed\'eric Paulin, Andrew Ranicki, Justin Roberts, Michah Sageev, Peter Scott, Ulrike Tillmann, Vladimir Turaev, Shicheng Wang. The Managing Editors (in charge of publishing) are Colin Rourke and Brian Sanderson. Manuscripts may be submitted to any Editor, including the Editors-in-Chief (but not the Managing Editors). For details about the mathematical interests of the members of the Editorial Board and for instructions on the submission of manuscripts, visit our web site at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/ As most of you probably know, the underlying reason for independent journals is that most of the commercial journals specializing in topology have priced themselves beyond the reach of our libraries. AGT intends to compete directly for the stronger papers in Topology and Its Applications, K-Theory, Geometria Dedicata, Topology and The Journal of Knot Theory and its Ramifications. The 1999 prices for those journals range between $.45 and $.92/page, plus varying supplements (which are difficult to pin down because they depend upon complex arrangements) for the electronic version. On the other hand, we anticipate that AGT will cost about $.10/page for the printed version and zero for the electronic version. The issue of journal prices was the main reason for the founding of GTP, a non-profit making publication enterprise specializing in electronic publications. It is based in the Mathematics Department of the University of Warwick at Coventry, UK, and it will publish the electronic versions of Algebraic & Geometric Topology and its sister journal Geometry & Topology. This raises the immediate question: how is the new journal Algebraic & Geometric Topology} related to the existing journal Geometry & Topology? They are distinct competing journals owned by the same parent organization, just as {\it Springer-Verlag} publishes competing graduate textbooks in topology. Each has its own editorial board. The mathematical interests and tastes of the board members naturally shape the journal. These interests have some overlap, and many areas of non-overlap. Algebraic & Geometric Topology aims to be more inclusive than Geometry & Topology, and it intends to concentrate more specifically on topology. It will set its own standards as it evolves, with those standards determined in part by the competing journals which we named explicitly above. For many years topologists have had a choice of commercial journals. Now they will also have a choice among independent journals. Endorsement by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has been requested and is pending. If we receive it, we anticipate that subscriptions to the paper version will come in from a broad selection of research libraries. Negotiations with publishers for printing the paper version are underway. We anticipate that they will be completed well before we have enough papers for our first volume. Archiving will be handled through the arXiv (at either arXiv.org or xxx.lanl.gov), a free service which appears to us to be sound and reliable. Note that we use the arXiv solely as an extra layer of security (in case for some unknown reason the files stored electronically at Warwick University are lost). The papers which are stored in the arXiv will carry the AGT logo and will say, very clearly, ``Published in Algebraic & Geometric Topology". They therefore cannot be confused with preprints. We solicit your submissions, and your assistance in encouraging your library to provide convenient browsing access to AGT. We hope that you will find this new journal as exciting as we do, and will express that feeling by sending us your papers, contributing your expertise as a referee when we call on you, and by telling your students and colleagues about AGT. Sincerely, Bob Oliver, Marty Scharlemann (for the Editorial Board of AGT) and Joan Birman, John Jones, Rob Kirby, Haynes Miller, Colin Rourke, Brian Sanderson (Executive Committee of GTP)