“…the Library would make it easy for users to join the conversation regardless of where they are, through the presentation of a single facade. There is, for example. only one Google, one Amazon, and one Wikipedia. Why should users have to search from among thousands of libraries to find the conversations they want? Participatory networking will be most effective when libraries work together, when the whole is greater than its parts.”

Participatory networks, Lankes, Silverstien, and Nicholson, Information Technology and Libraries, Volume 26, Number 4, December 2007

Maybe Open Worldcat is the beginnings of this?
Mindy