Looking for help getting started with xml driven lists, no flash!

i’m looking to understand how i could use xml databases to drive the population of things like photo galleries or other lists but I dont want to use Flash. Can anyone think of any examples or even search terms that I might use to exclude flash from the results?

I would like to have an external xml file populate lists of thumbnails and/or text snippets…and I understand the process in principle but I need to see an example in practice.

thanks!