General

Navigating haystacks and discovering needles | By Steve Pepper | pdf 633kb
An article that appeared in Markup Languages: Theory and Practice, Vol. 1 No. 4 (MIT Press, 1999). Contains additional material under the subject headings "Topic maps and reference works publishing" and "Topic maps and RDF".

Euler, topic maps and revolution | By Steve Pepper | pdf 364kb
The original paper from XML Europe 1999 containing an introduction (now superceded), an account of the applicability of topic maps to reference works publishing (see rather the Markup Languages article, above), and the Euler Connection.

Schemas

Creating semantically valid topic maps | By Geir Ove Grønmo | pdf 34kb
A paper about schemas for topic maps from XML Europe 2000. It discusses the need for a schema system, gives examples of possible constraints that a schema could describe, and examines existing constraint mechanisms and their applicability to topic maps. The slides from the presentation are also available.

Topic maps: Introduction and Allegro | By Hans-Holger Rath and Steve Pepper | pdf 184kb
A paper from XML 1999 that contains an introduction to topic maps followed by a discussion of extended concepts such as topic map templates, type hierarchies, association types and constraints.

Querying

The answer is just a question [of topic maps matching] | By Rafal Ksiezyk
A paper from XML Europe 2000 relating topic maps with semantic networks and conceptual graphs, and proposing a topic map query language (TMQL).

Scope

A Proposal for Extending Scope in XTM | By Kal Ahmed
Outlines a proposal for an more prescriptive treatment of the concepts of scope and what it means for a characteristic assignment to be valid. The document goes on to propose the means by which this approach to scope might be encoded in an XML document.

Structuring Scope | By Marc de Graauw
Discusses the interpretation of scope (or the semantics of scope) and the effect of scope on the merging of topic characteristics when two topics are merged.

Conversion

Automagic Topic Maps | By Geir Ove Grønmo
This paper explains a new approach for creating topic maps from existing data sources. The approach consists of a three-step procedure, and includes going via RDF to produce the final topic map.

Methods for the Automatic Construction of Topic Maps | By Steve Pepper | pdf 237kb
Slides from a presentation covering the principles of automated topic map generation from structured knowledge, document metadata, information systems, structured document content, and unstructured document content.

The Ontopia MapMaker: Leveraging RDF to autogenerate Topic Maps | By Steve Pepper | pdf 211kb
Slides from a slightly naughty presentation describing a toolkit that uses RDF to generate topic maps from really dirty data.

Content management

Topic Maps in content management: The rise of the ITMS | By Lars Marius Garshol
This paper shows how topic maps can address the limitations of traditional content management systems while building on their strengths. The term ITMS (Integrated Topic Management System) is coined for a content management system based on topic maps, and the paper shows what is necessary to build such systems, as well as what benefits they bring.

Topic Maps for repositories | By Kal Ahmed
Kal Ahmed's XML Europe 2000 paper discussing the potential application of topic maps as an interface to a multi-user document repository.

Knowledge management

Topic maps and knowledge representation | By Ann Wrightson
Examination of the intersection of topic maps and knowledge representation.

Seriously capable Topic Maps | By Ann Wrightson
This paper outlines what is required of topic maps in order to gain the most benefit from them. A topic map architecture is described which covers a variety of information repositories.