In the United States, the federal funding agencies sponsor digital libraries research, but not the development of large-scale library services. Conversely, JISC's focus is on providing advanced services to higher education, with research as a means to that end. In Europe, governments fund almost all universities. This means that it is possible for them to tackle centralized projects that would be impossible in the United States, such as the Athens system for authenticating users of academic libraries in Britain. This difference of emphasis is seen in D-Lib Magazine .
International collaboration is always fashionable, but it is expensive in time and money.
Often it is no more than lip service. The NSF, JISC and CNI deserve our thanks for taking practical steps to make it happen.