Can I use another user's contacts in my address book?

[wfooshee]

In Outlook, if I view the properties of my Contacts folder, there is a check box for "Show this folder as an e-mail address book" and that contacts list is available using the To button on a new message. I need to be able to do that with another user's contacts folder that I have access to. I do NOT want to create records for those people in my own contacts folder, then have two lists to maintain. We're talking hundreds of names here.
I also want to be able to create distribution lists using names from my contacts and from another user's contacts.

Outlook will let me see another user's contacts, but it really won't let me do anything with them. I want to treat another user's contacts folder, which I have open in my Outlook screen, EXACTLY the same way I would treat my own. I want it in my Address Book. I want it in my search list for new messages. I want to build distribution lists with it. Am I missing something, or a groupware function this basic really not possible in Outlook?

For reference, I am comparing this to GroupWise's shared address books.

 

[smah]

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm

 

[wfooshee]

OK, my fault. I omitted the fact that we are on an Exchange server, and we have no problem sharing contact lists and calendars. The problem as that though I can look at another user's contacts, there's almost nothing useful I can do with them. I can't build a distribution list, I can't pick the names using the To button of a new message. The one thing I can do is right-click the contact and pick new mail message from the popup menu, but what if I want a group of them to receive the message?

When I say "I can't" I mean that I don't know how, and my perception is that I can't. Somebody please tell me I'm wrong. We switched from GroupWise to Exchange becasue another program we needed had no support for GroupWise, but this is crippling us.