This article describes a method to collect, formalise, organise and display knowledge in what we call an "electronic knowledge book". The development of such a document is based on knowledge modelling. This is a complementary approach to information retrieval, dedicated to knowledge exploitation by using a document base. The proposed method assumes that knowledge in an organisation is seen as a sign system as well as a complex system. Hence the modelling process is built on a semiotic and systemic base. The comprehension by the reader comes from the semiotic process of model interpretation. Hypermedia browsing is then fundamental, hypermedia design is consequently critical. A conceptual architecture is proposed for coupling the electronic knowledge book with an information retrieval tool, in order to get a system for "meaning management".
