1. A document management apparatus for managing operations with respect to a document, said operations specified by a number of users, said apparatus comprising: A) a scheduler for controlling execution of a process that performs a user-specified operation with respect to said document, said process including at least one thread of execution; B) a memory having a plurality of containers associated with said document, said containers including: i) at least one permanent attribute container for storing information with respect to said document that is global among all said users; ii) at least one ephemeral attribute container for storing information with respect to said document that is specific to at least one of said users; and iii) at least one local attribute container for storing information with respect to said document that is specific to said at least one thread of execution with respect to said document.