This paper shows how topic maps can address the limitations of traditional content management systems while building on their strengths. The term Integrated Topic Management System (CMS) 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.

The use of the WebDAV protocol to layer topic maps over content stores is also considered, and an abstract topic map-to-content store protocol is sketched, which corresponds very closely to WebDAV.

The paper assumes a basic knowledge of topic maps. Those unfamiliar with topic maps are recommended to read an introduction such as [Pepper02] first.