Why there’s no a “official” material library?
Alltaken was working on one I believe (which seems to have flopped), and CyanN was working on one too I think.
You can scour this thread for all the materials that are in there: https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32763
And do the material library yourself!
Stefano 
Why there’s no a “official” material library?
Yes there is.
http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/
Look under “The Blender Texture Disk” :).
Look under “The Blender Texture Disk”
Just 27 materials…
But they are 27 official materials :).
You also missed the fact that there are 500 or so textures on there which is a huge part of a material. A material tells Blender how a texture is going to be mapped on an object and what that texture affects (color, spec, bump, refl, etc). So doing that last part for you doesn’t make a whole lot of sense becuase that is often model specific.
What you are probably looking for is a good selection of textures that you can use. Do a google search for a cd with tons of textures on them and you should be able to find some good stuff.
If you’re question is “why isn’t there an official texture library with every texture possible under the sun,” the reason is simple. People can’t create the exact texture you are looking for. I can promise you that if you get a stock texture you are going to want to tweak it. I havn’t had the need to resort to a huge texture library. For the most part if I need a texture I’ll just draw one. Some things you just have to do yourself.
Is this Disk still available? I’ve looked at the Blender eStore, and it says it must be purchased through Amazon.com, but there’s no link, and searching on Amazon returns 0 matches.
Can someone shed light on this? If this isn’t still available, can someone suggest a similar Texture Disk at a reasonable price?
there’s also the darktree plugin…it ads quite a few good customizable mat’ls from darktree’s libraries and uses em from one place sort of like an ‘official material library’…im not sure where its at - u gotta search the forum.
First things first, I wouldn’t buy textures unless you’re really strapped for time or are totally inept with photoshop / gimp. Even a complete beginner can make their own textures quite easily from photographs and careful setup of mapping coordinates.
First question is, what kind of material are you trying to go for?
Second is, have you done a google image search, with the size set to large? That’s the first place I go always. For non-commercial images it’s great, and for commercial images you can use what you find there to help you create your own.
The other thing would be to use a digital camera. However, doing a search on google for “free textures” pops up a lot of results. Try some of those sites before shelling out money.
The Blender texture disc was great, but the materials in it could now use an update. The texture images, though, are still useful.
I need a full-blown texture library (not, strictly speaking, a materials library).
I know I can create my own, but I’m, as you said, strapped for time. I’m working on a project that’s going to need hundreds of various textures. I’m already going to be making several hundred custom textures, and in addition to the meshes, and the scripting involved, I don’t have time to do all of the generic rock & grass & wood & etc. textures that I’ll need.
I take it from your response that the Disk in question is not still available?
Any ideas on a single library of inexpensive, ready-to-use texture images? I really need the convenience of a pre-compiled texture resource… as I said, I don’t have time to hunt for and prepare individual images.
Well, if it’s not up on the blender store site, then I couldn’t tell you where to find it. However, now that I know more about your situation…
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Marlin Studios is a great resource. Their discs aren’t terribly cheap ($159 a pop) but they’re nice quality and they have loads and loads of seamless textures.
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Eye Candy 5: Textures. I know you’re short on time, but if you’re also short on money this is the best for the buck. It lets you create lots of seamless textures at any resolution with a few clicks in Photoshop. A friend of mine used it on his last project (something to do with bears in a city?), and I played with it. It’s not bad.
The other thing you could do would be to go to your local book store and pick up copies of CGWorld, Digit, or one of those other CD+Mag CG magazines. Every one comes with textures on the disc, and in the states the mags are around 20$ each. They’re a crap shoot, though. Sometimes you get really amazing, useful stuff, and other times you get 500 shots of bubbles.