A document management system manages a large number of XML documents on an efficient and cost-effective basis. Storage requirements are reduced, because compressed versions of the XML documents, which are much smaller in size than the XML documents themselves, are used when processing queries. Processing requirements are reduced, because parsing is not a required step when processing queries. Instead of parsing, the query is processed by unpacking the compressed version of the document identified in the query, node by node until enough information has been decoded to satisfy the query. Processing speed is improved in two ways. First, unpacking as carried out according to the invention is a much faster process than parsing. Second, the entire document need not be unpacked.