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johnelle - calibre is a database application, to function on a network means it needs to have a robust client-server architecture, shared storage devices (NAS's, servers etc) don't provide that out of the box. Furthermore would have to work on a number of different operating systems (OS/X, Windows, Linux) and file systems (HFS, NTFS, Ext, NFS etc)
FWIW - Kovid is working on a new calibre server component that may address some/all of your issues, at guess I would say we'll see it next year. Kovid won't release it until he is confident it works reliably, and I anticipate he will have a beta testing phase.
Meanwhile, have you considered using the CALIBRE_OVERRIDE_DATABASE_PATH feature, see ==>>
Environment variables. Or using symbolic links at the server that target the metadata.db file(s) on the client that does the updating. The efficacy of either will depend on what you're trying to achieve by having the library on a server.
BR