For those of you in the Washington DC area on March 21st, I'd recommend you stop by the the Washington DC Area SQML/XML Users Group. Carlo Innocenti, DataDirects' XQuery Program Manager will discuss using XQuery to process and integrate XML, relational, web services, and legacy data. Here's the abstract: This session provides an overview of the XQuery language, how XQuery can be leveraged in complex data integration scenarios and how XQuery can easily fit into various architectures including today's SOAs. Live demos will provide hands-on experience about the power and flexibility of the XQuery language. At the end of the session, you will have answers to these and more questions: Can I use XQuery to query large XML documents? Can I use XQuery to query non-XML documents? Why would I use XQuery instead of Java? How do I get started with XQuery? How can I modularize my XQuery? How is XQuery different from XSLT? This is a group I spoke to a few years ago and they were an excellent audience, so I can definitely recommend you stop by. Co-ordinates for this meeting are here or directly from the DC User Groups page.