14. A computer-implemented system for providing annotated electronic documents, the annotations which are to be applied to the documents being stored in a first data storage, the documents being stored in a second data storage, the first data storage and the second data storage being at least one of physically separate and logically separate, said system comprising: (A) at least one merge component, configured, to, responsive to a request from the user to retrieve the at least one document: retrieve the at least one document from a second data storage as document data, retrieve at least one annotation to be applied to said at least one document from a first data storage as annotation data, said document data including at least one element corresponding to a location of the at least one annotation within said document, wherein the annotation data is image data or text, wherein each annotation can be different from every other annotation; and combine the document data and the annotation data to form a unitary single logical document displaying the annotation embedded seamlessly in the document data at the location; (B) at least one split component complementary to the merge component, the split component is configured to, responsive to a request from the user to store the document: extract the annotation data and the document data from the single logical document, update the at least one annotation in the first data storage from the extracted annotation data, and to update the at least one document in the second data storage from the extracted document data; and (C) at least one version component, configured to at least one of manage a history of changes and to maintain a separate version for the document data and the annotation data to be applied thereto, wherein the annotation data indicates a predetermined section within the document as stored in the second data storage into which the annotation is to be embedded as indicated by an XML data schema.
14. A computer-implemented system for providing annotated electronic documents, the annotations which are to be applied to the documents being stored in a first data storage, the documents being stored in a second data storage, the first data storage and the second data storage being at least one of physically separate and logically separate, said system comprising: (A) at least one merge component, configured, to, responsive to a request from the user to retrieve the at least one document: retrieve the at least one document from a second data storage as document data, retrieve at least one annotation to be applied to said at least one document from a first data storage as annotation data, said document data including at least one element corresponding to a location of the at least one annotation within said document, wherein the annotation data is image data or text, wherein each annotation can be different from every other annotation; and combine the document data and the annotation data to form a unitary single logical document displaying the annotation embedded seamlessly in the document data at the location; (B) at least one split component complementary to the merge component, the split component is configured to, responsive to a request from the user to store the document: extract the annotation data and the document data from the single logical document, update the at least one annotation in the first data storage from the extracted annotation data, and to update the at least one document in the second data storage from the extracted document data; and (C) at least one version component, configured to at least one of manage a history of changes and to maintain a separate version for the document data and the annotation data to be applied thereto, wherein the annotation data indicates a predetermined section within the document as stored in the second data storage into which the annotation is to be embedded as indicated by an XML data schema. 20. The system of claim 14 , further comprising: an annotation tool, responsive to a user, configured to input the annotation data to be applied to the at least one document, including a selection resource to select at least one element of the document data to be annotated, and a mark-up resource to at least one of add and edit the annotation data corresponding to the at least one element; an edit tool, responsive to a user, configured to select the at least one element, and to edit the at least one element, including a representation of the at least one selected element, and a representation of the annotation data; and a reference tool, configured to determine at least one reference to the at least one element and at least an other element of at least one document, and to enable the at least one reference to be traversed by the user.