This paper firstly gives the introduction of topic map, and its relationship with index, glossary, taxonomy,ontology, and semantic Web, and then the suitability of topic map for digial information organization is discussed. Then introduces an experimental study on the application of topic map technology in knowledge navigation for a dust
devil archive. The paper presents procedures and methods to build topic map ontology, a comparision between two topic map visualization application tools, and atool for exporting XTM file and signing the document with topic map. At last, the potential application and development of topic map is discussed.