This paper discusses TMShare, a peer-to-peer information-sharing application based on topic map technology.

The paper begins by discussing the objectives of the application. Primarily, this application has been developed as a test-bed for an innovative approach to topic map information discovery and integration based on decentralised administration and pools of information, which use controlled vocabularies in the form of subject indicators to enrich each other.

The main focus of this paper is on the role of topic maps in the data model for the system and specifically the approach taken to exchange of topic map data between peers. The system as currently implemented supports three different types of request which are presented in detail. Regardless of the type of request issued, the response received is always expressed as a topic map fragment. This fragment is a complete topic map consisting of only those topic map objects which match the query and sufficient context objects to make the topic map meaningful.

Finally, some future plans for the application are discussed and the possibility of integration with more traditional server-based topic map applications are explored.