The `SciKnowMap' project is concerned with developing an open source topic mapping tool that provides a way of drawing visualizations of data derived from scientific knowledge sources (such as bodies of literature). This work was initiated with studies of the organization of posters at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting (see: http://f1000.com/posters/browse/summary/1092223) and studies of the organization of NIH funding (see http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1619).