Libraries in Malaysia have a history of co‐operation for interlibrary lending, referral services and so on. The MALMARC project, set up in the late 1970s, enabled co‐operative cataloguing to take place and MARC records to be transmitted from the National Library of Malaysia to relevant libraries. By the early 1990s e‐mail had replaced earlier telecommunications technologies for the transmitting of messages between libraries. In 1994 the National Library of Malaysia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MIMOS (Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems) to set up a national library network known as JARINGAN ILMU. This paper describes the background to this project and the developments that have occurred.