School library pilot projects in New York State and the Westchester, New York, Library System are examined as a foundation for building the Southern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) School Library System. The creation of this BOCES system is charted from the processes of obtaining the planning grant, state mandates, and funding, through preparing needs assessments for salaried and volunteer workers, choosing a database, and developing standards for the database. The University of Toronto Library Automation System (UTLAS) was chosen as a bibliographic utility because it was being used by the contiguous public library system and community college, it had experience dealing with school library clients, and it could produce a local record for school library members. The UTLAS current cataloging experiment is discussed; the progress of the project during the first year is evaluated in relation to the BOCES plan of service; problem areas are pointed out; future development is projected; and the benefits of membership in the library network are enumerated. (Author/KM)