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This paper describes REPOX, an XML infrastructure to store and manage metadata, in the sense it is commonly defined in digital libraries. The purpose is to make it possible, in alignment with an Enterprise Architecture model, to develop a component of a Service Oriented Architecture that can manage, transparently, large amounts of descriptive metadata, independently of their schemas or formats, and for the good of other services. The main functions of this infrastructure are submission (including synchronisation with external data sources), storage (including long-term preservation) and retrieval (with persistent linking). The case is demonstrated with a deployment at the National Library of Portugal, using metadata from two information systems and three schemas: bibliographic and authority data from a union catalogue and descriptive data from an archival management system.