CURBING SECURITY THREATS IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: A SURVEY OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS’ PERCEPTION ON CYBERCRIME AND CYBER SECURITY INFORMATION IN THREE SELECTED COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated academic librarians perception of cybercrime and cyber security information in curbing security threat in academic libraries in three (3) selected institutions namely; FCE, Zaria, FCT college of Education, zuba and Niger State College of Education, Minna. The study was guided by five (5) objectives and five (5) research questions. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study; the population is comprised of sixteen (16) academic Librarians in the three (3) selected colleges of education. Purposive sampling techniques was used for the study. Questionnaire was used as the data collection instruments while data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and results were presented in tables, frequency distribution, percentages and mean score. The findings of the study showed that; academic librarians perceived cybercrime as intellectual property theft, plagiarism, copyright violation, impersonation, software piracy among others. The findings from the study also revealed that academic librarians are aware of the following cybercrimes; cyber cracking, data breach, identity theft, cyber hacking, unauthorized access to information, copyright violation among others. It was also discovered that majority of the respondents indicated to a very high extent that the desire to get good grade, fear of failure, lack of good academic writing skills and desire to make money causes students involvement in cybercrime in academic libraries. The study further revealed lack of cyber security skills among academic librarian, poor password management, lack of cyber security infrastructure among others as challenges to the successful deployment of cyber security in academic libraries. The study suggests; cybercrime and cyber security awareness among academic librarians, library and internet literacy, deployment of cyber security infrastructure etc. as measures available to combat cybercrime in academic libraries.