The term "repository" is often used to refer to a content storage system for learning objects. The easiest way to understand the function of a repository is to take what you know about a search engine (like Yahoo, HotBot, or Lycos) and combine that with what you know about a library. The difference in a learning object repository is that the search engine is more sophisticated to help catalog content, and while books are found in a library, in a repository instead of books you find learning objects. And while a card catalog in a library contains all the descriptive information about the books avilable, the meta-data that decribes learning content is used to catalog objects within a repository.

Another difference from the concept of a library is that while the library would store most of its books within one building, a repository may only point to where the learning objects are located rather than contain the objects themselves.

The objects below were created to help provide information around the concept of storing (or referencing) learning objects in a repository.