Community Library Assistant

Cambridge County Council; Ramsey; On-site; GBP 12,000 - 15,000; Part time

Job summary

A community library service in England is looking for an enthusiastic Library Assistant to provide excellent customer service. This role involves managing inquiries, supporting library events, and promoting services within the community. Ideal candidates will have strong interpersonal skills, the ability to work independently, and a passion for the library's role in the community. Full training will be provided, but library experience is a plus. Flexible working hours may include weekends and evenings.

Benefits

Wellbeing package

Flexible bank holidays

Paid volunteering hours

Qualifications

• Demonstrate your understanding of delivering good customer service.
• Good knowledge of the Internet and ability to assess information value.
• Ability to work with limited supervision.

Responsibilities

• Customer-facing role managing library inquiries and creating a welcoming space.
• Support and deliver library events for adults and children.
• Promote library services in the community.

Skills

Customer service

Interpersonal skills

IT skills

Teamwork

Adaptability

Job description

About the role

Do you have a knack for helping people, and a desire to work at the heart of the local community? We are looking for an enthusiastic and versatile person to join our friendly and hard‑working team.

Ramsey Library is a vibrant community library catering for a growing and diverse community. As well as providing for all ages with our selection of books, we organise regular activities and events, and work closely with partners within our building, schools and local groups.

We are passionate about creating a warm and welcoming space and developing a life‑long love of reading within our community.

This post is based at Ramsey Library for 14 hours pw. This is a single manned library.

Please see timetable attached for working pattern. This role involves some weekend and evening working.

Ramsey Library is part of a wider team which includes libraries in St Ives and Warboys. Travel may be necessary from time to time.

For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact:

Naomi Peel at [e-mail] or Julie Kisby at [e-mail].

Our benefits

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.

Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more.

What will you be doing?

This is primarily a customer‑facing role working in the library, dealing with enquiries, creating and maintaining a welcoming space, supporting customers to access online services and promoting the Library offer in the community.

Ramsey Library is a single manned library; confidence to work on your own is essential as are excellent communication skills.

There are opportunities to support and deliver Library events for both adults and children and work alongside/support our partners. This could include Rhymetime, Storytime and Engage events. Although there is plenty of routine work, there are also many opportunities to be creative.

Library experience is an advantage. However, we would love to hear from candidates who have demonstrated exceptional customer service skills in other contexts. Training will be given on specific library systems, but an ability to work with IT is essential.

The successful candidate will be passionate about what public libraries can offer, and able to promote our services both within the library and in the wider community.

Please note that library work is physically demanding; see the Job Hazards information for more details.

About you

Please refer to the job description and person specification for full details about this job role.

Please note: The supporting statement is the most important part of your application. This will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role.

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 criteria and provide practical examples of how and when you have used the particular knowledge, skill or experience:

Our criteria includes:

• 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.
• A good knowledge of the Internet and a demonstrable capacity to assess the value of the information found there.
• 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.
• An ability to work under pressure.
• An ability to work with limited supervision.

Please check job description and person spec for further details.

About us

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.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don't meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don't be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

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.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers