Information Security Awareness of Librarians in the Baltic Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

. The aim of this study was to analyse the information security awareness of librarians in the three Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – in seven focus areas, which were password management, use of email, use of the Internet, use of social media, use of devices, handling of information and incident prevention and handling. The study was conducted among librarians in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. A total of 1,217 librarians from the public, special, school and research libraries of the three Baltic countries responded to the survey. Pearson correlation, average scores and descriptive statistics were used to achieve the research objective. The results revealed that Estonian librarians are more cyber-aware than their Latvian and Lithuanian colleagues, but everyone has their weaknesses. The chosen methodology is well suited for assessing the cyber awareness of not only library employees but also employees of all memory institutions (archives, museums) and identifying training needs.