Community Library Assistant

Cambridgeshire County Council; Littleport; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 27,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing package

Additional annual leave (4 weeks)

Flexible bank holidays

Pension contributions via AVCs

Development opportunities

Paid volunteering hours

IDEAL staff network support

Employee Recognition Awards

Cambs Rewards discounts and car lease

Cycle to Work scheme

Job summary

Cambridgeshire County Council is seeking an enthusiastic Community Library Assistant for Littleport Library. You will be the first point of contact, delivering friendly front-line services and helping promote the library offer.

You’ll support events, outreach and partnerships, work as part of a diverse team, be IT-literate and ready to adapt to changing hours or locations in the East Cambridgeshire district.

Qualifications

• Demonstrate your understanding of delivering good customer service.
• Interpersonal skills, including patience and listening skills with an ability to establish exactly what the customer requires.
• Flair for working with children, families and library partners.
• A pleasant, helpful manner with customers of all ages and abilities.
• A strong team player, able to work with colleagues on projects and contribute to team goals.
• Flexibility and adaptability in all areas of work, including being able to respond to a change of hours or workplace location.

Responsibilities

• Providing friendly, efficient, customer-facing, front-line public services to users of Cambridgeshire Libraries.
• Contributing to and promoting the library offer.
• Supporting library events and activities.
• Supporting the wider aims and objectives of the service by assisting in delivery of partnership initiatives and outreach work.

Skills

Customer service

Interpersonal skills

Patience and listening

Children and families engagement

Team player

Flexibility and adaptability

Tools

IT skills

Job description

We are looking for an enthusiastic and versatile person to help us shape the future of Cambridgeshire Libraries. We maintain a high-quality public library service, working in partnership with a range of other organisations and community groups. Our Community Library Assistants are the first point of contact for members of the public who are visiting and using our libraries, and consequently the role is varied and allows staff to develop many different skills. This role is based at Littleport Library, however you may be occasionally asked to travel to other libraries within the East Cambridgeshire district.

• Providing friendly, efficient, customer-facing, front-line public services to users of Cambridgeshire Libraries.
• Contributing to and promoting the library offer.
• Supporting library events and activities.
• Supporting the wider aims and objectives of the service by assisting in delivery of partnership initiatives and outreach work., Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action. The successful candidate will have a flair for working with people, able to create a friendly and welcoming environment for a diverse range of customers. You will be excellent at multi-tasking, be quick and efficient, and enjoy working under pressure.

You will be passionate about what public libraries can offer, and able to promote our services. Although there is plenty of routine work, there is also scope to be creative. Training will be given on specific library systems, but an ability to work with IT is assumed. Although library experience is an advantage, we would also like to hear from candidates who have demonstrated exceptional customer service skills in other contexts. When completing the supporting statement for this position, please tell us how your skills, experience, capability, and potential match each of the criteria in the person specification. Think carefully about the following criteria and provide practical examples of how and when you have used the particular knowledge, skill or experience.

• Demonstrate your understanding of delivering good customer service
• Interpersonal skills, including patience and listening skills with an ability to establish exactly what the customer requires
• Flair for working with children, families and library partners.
• A pleasant, helpful manner with customers of all ages and abilities
• A strong team player, able to work with colleagues on projects and contribute to team goals.
• Flexibility and adaptability in all areas of work, including being able to respond to a change of hours or workplace location.

IT skills are essential for this role and full training will be given on library specific systems and processes. The role involves standing, bending, carrying books, moving furniture and pushing heavy trolleys. A successful candidate will be welcomed into our friendly and diverse team of staff and volunteers. We also work closely with other colleagues in the Cambridgeshire Libraries team, as well as our partner teams such as Skills and Communities.

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes