Why not split the sting right into properly named variables? IMHO it's more understandeble. Besides, it's more compact - which is generally a good thing.

#! perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
my $str = "Title: Learning Perl  Author: Schwartz, Randal L.  ISBN: xx
+xx";
if ( my ($title, $author, $isbn) 
     = $str =~ /^Title: (.*)\s+Author: (.*)\s+ISBN: (.*)/ ) {

       $author =~ s/\.//g; # Remove full stops (periods)
       print "<$title><$author><$isbn>"; # Line 8
}
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