An attempt is made to trace the history of every major library in Malay and Singapore. Social and recreational club libraries are not included, and school libraries are not extensively covered. Although it is possible to trace the history of Malaysia's libraries back to the first millenium of the Christian era, there are few written records pre-dating World War II. The lack of documentation on the early periods of library history creates an emphasis on developments in the modern period. This is not out of order since it is only recently that libraries in West Malaysia and Singapore have been recognized as one of the important media of mass education. Lack of funds, failure to recognize the importance of libraries, and problems caused by the federal structure of government are blamed for this delay in development. Hinderances to future development are the lack of trained librarians, problems of having to provide material in several different languages, and the lack of national bibliographies, union catalogs and lists of serials. (SJ)