Simon Willison’s Weblog

TMs

24th July 2002

I’ve been trying to get my head around Topic Maps, a powerful but complex standard for building intricate networks of metadata. I couldn’t even begin to describe them myself but the following resources have proved very useful:

The TAO of Topic Maps

A superb article describing the underlying concepts behind the standard in non-technical terms. This is a great initial introduction to Topic Maps and knowledge structures in general.

My First Topic Map

A tutorial describing the initial construction of a Topic Map in XTM, using Star Wars as the example topic. Easy Topic Maps has a collection of other excellent Topic Maps resources.

Omnigator

The trial version of Ontopia’s Omnigator. This requires a JRE but is essential if you want to explore a TopicMap once you have created it. You can play with it online here.