Embodiments of the invention provide techniques for maintaining I/O value caches for database queries. Each maintained cache may be configured for use with a particular database query. Each cache may be persistently maintained in a system, meaning the cache is not automatically deleted after some period of time, and may thus be used to process subsequent instances of the same query. By use of the maintained cache, executing subsequent instances of the query may be avoided, thus saving time and system resources. Further, the maintained cache may be adapted to process other queries having similar characteristics to the initial query. The data included in each cache may be refreshed as required by changes to the underlying data.