On Ubuntu 11.10, with node 0.6.17, 0.6.18 and 0.6.19 with installed libxml2 (2.7.8) and libxml2-dev - everything was working properly.
On FreeBSD server with node 0.6.19, libxml2 version 20708 (xmllint --version; xmllint: using libxml version 20708) it gives the following error message:
/home/pathtofile/www/node_modules/libxmljs/lib/element.js:24
Element.prototype = bindings.Element.prototype;
^
TypeError: Cannot read property 'prototype' of undefined
at Object. (/home/pathtofile/www/node_modules/libxmljs/lib/element.js:24:37)
at Module._compile (module.js:446:26)
at Object..js (module.js:464:10)
at Module.load (module.js:353:31)
at Function._load (module.js:311:12)
at Module.require (module.js:359:17)
at require (module.js:375:17)
at Object. (/home/pathtofile/www/node_modules/libxmljs/lib/document.js:3:15)
at Module._compile (module.js:446:26)
at Object..js (module.js:464:10)
add to your code before you call the xml objects:
var xml = require("libxmljs")