1. 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) an annotation component configured to determine, responsive to at least one user, at least one annotation to be applied to at least one document, including a selection resource to select at least a portion of the at least one document and to associate the at least one annotation therewith, and a mark-up resource to at least one of add and edit the at least one annotation, wherein the annotation is image data or text, wherein each annotation can be different from every other annotation; (B) a reference component, responsive to the at least one user, configured to at least one of establish, traverse, indicate, and remove, at least one reference between the at least one portion and at least one of an other portion of the at least one document, an other document, and at least one other portion of the other document; (C) at least one merge component configured to, responsive to a request from a user to retrieve the at least one document: retrieve the at least one document from the second data storage as document data, retrieve the at least one annotation to be applied to said at least one document from a first data storage as annotation data, and combine the annotation data and the document data to form a unitary single logical document, the single logical document displaying the annotation embedded seamlessly in the document data, 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; and (D) 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 update the at least one document in the second data storage from the extracted document data.
1. 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) an annotation component configured to determine, responsive to at least one user, at least one annotation to be applied to at least one document, including a selection resource to select at least a portion of the at least one document and to associate the at least one annotation therewith, and a mark-up resource to at least one of add and edit the at least one annotation, wherein the annotation is image data or text, wherein each annotation can be different from every other annotation; (B) a reference component, responsive to the at least one user, configured to at least one of establish, traverse, indicate, and remove, at least one reference between the at least one portion and at least one of an other portion of the at least one document, an other document, and at least one other portion of the other document; (C) at least one merge component configured to, responsive to a request from a user to retrieve the at least one document: retrieve the at least one document from the second data storage as document data, retrieve the at least one annotation to be applied to said at least one document from a first data storage as annotation data, and combine the annotation data and the document data to form a unitary single logical document, the single logical document displaying the annotation embedded seamlessly in the document data, 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; and (D) 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 update the at least one document in the second data storage from the extracted document data. 6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising: at least one version component, configured to at least one of manage a history of changes and maintain at least one separate version for the at least one document and the at least one annotation applied thereto.