Abstract
The World according to Arcane is an operating instrumental paradigm for the electronic edition of scientifically established texts and knowledge, currently being used in several projects of scholarly edition. The world of knowledge is edited in a database the architecture of which is both generic, so as to be applicable to numerous domains, and simple : any information is a subject of interest, a multimedia document, a relation between subjects or an enrichment. Internal or external documents are enriched with the editing module, independently of the media and the final publication. The reading module offers very powerful procedures to investigate and browse electronic work : typified links inferred by the architecture, sophisticated indexation, dynamic composition of virtual documents, naturally formulated requests, formal treatments, and reading itineraries. The publishing module allows to export information in various formats (HTML, XML, TeX), to compose paper books, and to produce electronic books in the form of autonomous applications distributed on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, web site, or database system.