For those of you not be familiar the Medlane project, I'll give a brief description.
In 1998, Lane Medlane Library, and specifically Dick Miller, our head of technical services, recognized a growing divide between traditional library resources and the world of digital information.
Concerned that this trend would diminish the role of the library, and limit the scope of information to which library patrons are exposed, staff at Lane started the Medlane project.
The Medlane project is an experiment to explore how adopting XML, the eXtensible Markup Language, as the standard format for cataloging data would improve the service we provide to our patrons. In addition to our more experimental pursuits, Lane Medical Library implements many real-world, XML solutions.
For instance, we use XML to render our library web site; we use XML to register our digital serials with PubMed; and, we use XML when we dynamically build our online serials list from our catalog data.
We also use XML to automatically perform routine updates to our cataloging records. This allows catalogers to focus on tasks that computers cannot do, leaving much of the perfunctory bibliographic maintenance to a computer program.