Excellent stuff, but are universities really about the library or the social environment for learning. Looking at a local campus the number of buildings dedicated to libraries versus the number of buildings dedicated to other things suggests to me that while libaries are a draw they are not the purpose. The purpose is actually social (in the context of a learning environment) and making those social structures online will contribute to the success of the institution. I think Clay Shirky has a made an excellent point on groups, we see them in our physical presence, it only makes sense that a similar need would occur in our online presence.

Yesterday gentlemen X donated a library, tomorrow will he be sponsoring an open journal hosted by a university, an open project, a research project?

I would argue that gentlemen X donate the library for social standing

Excellent! Perhaps if we thought of teaching and learning more as art than science ...

I think Klee's Twittering Machine portrays an interesting possible depiction of your above commentary:

The picture depicts a group of birds, largely line drawings; all save the first are shackled on a wire; Each of the birds is open-beaked, with a jagged or rounded shape emerging from its mouth, widely interpreted as its protruding tongue.The end of the perch dips into a crank.

..."Like Charles Chaplin caught in the gears of Modern Times, they [the birds] whir helplessly, their heads flopping in exhaustion and pathos. One bird's tongue flies up out of its beak, an exclamation point punctuating its grim fate—to chirp under compulsion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twittering_Machine

The more horrifying the world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. - Paul Klee

- Carmen