Patterns of Arizona high schools' acquisition and use of microcomputer software.

The purpose of this study was to examine the patterns of acquisition and use of microcomputer software in Arizona high school library media centers, and to determine the selection procedures used by the library media specialists or other designated personnel responsible for the library media centers. The instrument used in this study was a survey developed and reviewed by a committee of school library media specialists. Subjects selected as the target population were 130 Arizona high school library media specialists. The procedures used for testing the 13 hypotheses were: (1) point biserial correlation coefficients, (2) t-tests, and (3) frequency distributions. Significant findings were indicated for the analysis of data of six hypotheses. The conclusions are summarized as follows: (1) As the size of the student body increases, the availability of microcomputer software for library management purposes also increases. (2) As the size of the library media budget increases the availability of microcomputer software for library management purposes also increases. (3) A negative relationship between the size of the library media center budget and the intention to obtain microcomputer software for school-wide purposes presented an anomaly for the intuitive approach to the analysis. (4) The methods chosen for evaluating and selecting microcomputer software varied significantly for each type of software selected. (5) Cell means indicated that for each type of library management programs obtained by the library media center, three school-wide programs were obtained. (6) Microcomputer software is utilized in the library media center more than in either classroom or in computer labs. Recommendations for additional investigation were discussed