a different field identifier in the following description of the present invention objects stored in a database of the present invention are referred to in terms of the type of product service or other item to which the object corresponds in particular an object corresponding to a product is referred to as u201c product object u201d an object corresponding to a vendor or provider is referred to as a u201c vendor object u201d and an object corresponding to a list is referred to as a u201c list object u201d likewise the fields used to store information in each object and the field identifiers used to identify the various types of fields that comprise the data structure of each object are referred to in terms of the attribute to which the field identifier of each field corresponds for example a field identifier corresponding to the attribute of product name is referred to as a u201c product name field identifier u201d and a field bearing the product name field identifier is referred to as a u201c product name field u201d the information regarding a particular attribute of the particular product service or other item to which an object relates is stored in a field is referred to interchangeably as u201c information u201d or a u201c value u201d as noted above the present invention lends itself to the creation and maintenance of user defined electronic lists one of ordinary.