Registries provide a mechanism with which VO applications can discover and
select resources - first and foremost data and services - that are relevant for
a particular scientific problem. This specification defines an interface for
searching this resource metadata based on the IVOA's TAP protocol. It specifies
a set of tables that comprise a useful subset of the information contained in
the registry records, as well as the table's data content in terms of the XML
VOResource data model. The general design of the system is geared towards
allowing easy authoring of queries.
