Correspondence: Darin McBeath, Elsevier, 8080 Beckett Center Drive, Suite 225, West Chester, OH 45069, USA. Tel: +1 513 942 5070; Fax: +1 513 942 6196; E-mail: d.mcbeath@elsevier.com

¹is Director of Disruptive Technology, Elsevier, responsible for researching new and emerging technologies and defining technical strategy. He represented Elsevier on the W3C XML Query Full Text Working Group and on the Medbiquitous Consortium Technical Steering Committee. For the past six years, he has specifically focused on XQuery and the opportunities this technology will offer publishers. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Analysis from Miami University.

Abstract

Throughout history, the field of publishing has been profoundly influenced by technological advances ranging from Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. Along the way, the term publisher has also been redefined to not only imply traditional publishers, such as Elsevier, but to additionally include governments, corporations and daily users of the internet. During the past decade, publishers have embraced the presentation neutrality of XML and the translation capabilities of XSLT to personalize a user's experience. But until now, the technology has not been available for a publisher to truly exploit database functionality for their XML content, repurpose these assets and unleash the power of XML. With the W3C XQuery 1.0 Recommendation in January 2007 and the introduction of XML Databases, the next significant technical advancement in publishing is currently underway and will forever change how XML assets are viewed, used and repurposed within the publishing industry. This paper provides some background information on these new technologies, describes how some publishers are unlocking their XML content with XQuery and XML Database technologies and presents some best practices identified through experience.