What should be done? (An idealistic perspective)

Create and maintain a central registry for all digitized material
A basis could be something like
http://www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/~rehmann/DML/dml_links.html

Encourage all repositories to support that central registry actively
(e.g., by presenting public OAI records for their material).

Issue some detailed "best practice" recommendations for displaying digitized material like http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~rehmann/DML/dml_standards_fin/ [ local copy ], formulated in one of the former projects do develop the DML.
Don't leave things vague here!

Give recommendations concerning copyright and maintenance of digital resources,
which encourage the distribution of data and the mirroring at many places.
Keep in mind: Distributed storing probably gives a proactive basis for long term preservation:
see the Stanford LOCKSS philosophy ("Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe!").
(Imagine what could have been saved if the material from the Anna-Amalia Library at Weimar had been digitized and distributed to various places before it burned down!!)
A good model for the DML development is given by the Open Software movement. Let many become involved in a distributed project.
Successful examples are:

GNU software project
Linux project
Perl development CPAN, Python Software Foundation
CTAN: The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
Wikipedia
together with its successful software counterpart Mediawiki

All these are worldwide movements with contributers from many sides: Voluntary individuals, societies, companies (commercial and non commercial).
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Copyright © 2012 by Ulf Rehmann