and resources over the Internet A registry is the mechanism used to discover the object The registry provides information about the object including the location of the object A repository is where the object resides A user retrieves an object from a repository Although XML is a recent newcomer in the electronic commerce landscape supply chains in many industries as well as industry consortiums and standards organizations are using XML to define their own vocabularies for business relationships and transactions The vocabularies business templates and business processes used by these groups to transact business must be accessible by all partners at any time Furthermore newcomers to the supply chain or business partnerships must be able to discover these documents and retrieve them A registry and repository can be used to provide this service A series of registries and repositories can link many organizations and industries acting as a web of registries for discovery Standards are needed to ensure interoperability of these registries; additionally a registry vocabulary must be created for consistency of discovery information among them NIST/ITL is working with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards OASIS the prominent industry consortium for defining specifications for the discovery and retrieval of XML-related documents NIST chairs the OASIS R