The ideas that led to the founding of an international journal devoted primarily to general
topology arose during the 1960s. This movement was primarily motivated by the rapid
growth of the field and its interactions with other areas of mathematics. In the late 1960s,
J. Nagata approached a publisher about beginning such a journal, but was turned away
on the grounds that it would not be profitable. At about the same time J. de Groot had a
similar idea, which he discussed with North-Holland Publishing Company. De Groot was
especially interested in requiring high standards as a prerequisite for publication in the
journal, and also advocated a substantially reduced rate for personal subscriptions. North-Holland
gave him sufficient encouragement that he continued to work on the project.
During the 1968 Herceg-Novi (Yugoslavia) Topology Conference, de Groot discussed
the project with various people, and began to organize the Advisory and Editorial Boards
for the journal (see Volume 1 for a complete listing of the Boards). During the summer and
fall of 1970, R.D. Anderson was visiting Amsterdam and became involved in the project.
The idea of starting a new journal, however, was not universally well received. Nagata
related to us, for example, that Professor C. Kuratowski was at first not very happy about
the inauguration of General Topology and its Applications because he thought it could
be a strong rival of Fundamenta Mathematicae. As Nagata pointed out, however, there
would be only limited competition between the two journals since Fundamenta covered a
broad area that included topology while the new journal would specialize almost entirely
in general topology alone.
S. Mardesic remembers being approached by de Groot about the new journal at the
Herceg-Novi Conference. J. Aarts told us that his letter of invitation to serve on the
Advisory Board was dated 30 October 1970. Stanley Franklin was asked to become the
first Managing Editor, and he agreed. During the Prague Topology Symposium in 1971 a
formal announcement (and a flyer) announcing the start of the new journal was distributed.
(The subscription rate was $20 for libraries and $13 for personal subscriptions.) Publication
began in April 1971 under the title General Topology and its Applications. Franklin (at
Carnegie-Mellon) and Nagata (at the University of Pittsburgh) organized a conference on
general topology called TOPO 70. The proceedings of this conference (Proceedings of the
Pittsburgh International Conference on General Topology) served to get the journal off the
ground with a body of manuscripts filling the first two issues.
In 1979, the journal responded to the rapid development in other areas of topology and
expanded its scope to include essentially all areas of the field. The title was changed to
Topology and its Applications to reflect this change. This change in scope and title was not
unanimously welcomed since it fundamentally changed the only journal in the world then
specializing in general topology.
The growth of the journal since 1979 has been remarkable. In 1979 the journal published
one volume whereas in 1999, it published nine volumes. This growth reflects the rapid
advances taking place in many areas of topology. This increase would not have been
possible, however, without constant attention to the maintenance of high quality. For this,
we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those colleagues who have helped
with the editorial process, and those who helped with the refereeing of manuscripts.
Richard Sher
Jerry E. Vaughan
Editors-in-Chief