Cybersecurity Awareness and Preparedness of Academic Library Professionals in Pakistan: Bridging the Training Gap in Digital Libraries

Abstract

The digitalization of academic libraries has increased cybersecurity issues, which has led to a greater need for professional preparedness. The study aims to focus on the awareness of academic library professionals about secure practices, their perceived risk factors, availability and support of training, and institutional support in Pakistan. The research adopted a quantitative cross-sectional survey study, which involved 101 respondents holding professional jobs within the private and public institutions in the institutions of higher learning and the study used descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze the data. The outcomes reveal that the overall percentage of cybersecurity awareness (M = 3.55) and secure practices adoption (M = 3.90) is high. However, the absence of even the most basic deficiencies was identified in the professional competence and formal training because only a third of respondents obtained systematic training on cybersecurity. Lack of systematic training was also among the severe weaknesses, whereas the institutional support rating was rated very highly (M = 4.06). These results show that a critical disconnect exists between good individual practicing levels on cybersecurity and a low level of institutionally built training infrastructure. This underscores that there is a pressing need to spearhead the capacity building of cybersecurity policies in libraries in an organized manner.