The main purpose of this study was to identify the major obstacles to cooperation as perceived by school library media specialists in the state of Mississippi and to determine if members of the Coastal Mississippi Library Cooperative (CMLC) believe that there are fewer obstacles to cooperation than do non-members. The secondary purpose was to evaluate the CMLC to some extent to determine if success was achieved through organization when defined by the variables, planning, governance, funding, communication, administration, and evaluation. The population of the study was all of the librarians (academic, public, school, and special) in the six-county area which comprises the CMLC, and a random sample of public school librarians throughout the remainder of the state. All of the school librarians were sent a questionnaire that requested their responses to statements of barriers to cooperation. All of the librarians in the CMLC region were sent a questionnaire to obtain their perceptions of participation in the CMLC. Pour librarians, members of the CMLC, were Interviewed to obtain information on the organizational factors of the CMLC. Data received from school library media specialists were submitted to various statistical tests. The Chi-Square statistic was used on the demographic portion of the questionnaire, which revealed that four of the variables and the dependent variable, membership in the CMLC, were significantly different. A t-test performed on the barriers to cooperation section produced no significant differences between the member and non-member responses. The perceptions of participation in the CMLC data revealed that there were differences among the four library systems (academic, public, school, and special) involved, but most of the respondents considered the CMLC to be successful. Data from the interview also revealed that the CMLC was successful in its organization. Due to the overall low response to the survey, the stated hypotheses could not be accepted; however, many of the findings and implications should be useful in helping to eliminate several obstacles to cooperation in Mississippi.
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
