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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.

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This is TMs by Simon Willison, posted on 24th July 2002.

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Previously hosted at http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2002/07/24/TMs