Provided are techniques for accessing information. A partial key index is created, wherein the partial key index includes one or more partial key index (PKI) entries, wherein each PKI entry identifies a portion of a metadata object, wherein the metadata object includes metadata entries, each of which corresponds to an associated data object. The partial key index is used to locate one or more PKI entries, wherein each of the one or more PKI entries corresponds to one or more data objects in one of the one or more composite objects. Each of the one or more PKI entries is used to retrieve location information of metadata in a metadata object for each of the one or more composite objects. The metadata from each metadata object is loaded into a database using the location information.