Library Assistant - School Library Service

London Borough of Hounslow; Hounslow; On-site; GBP 23,000 - 28,000; Full time

Job summary

The London Borough of Hounslow is seeking a passionate Library Assistant for the School Library Service to support project loan delivery and reading events across West London.

You will work with primary and secondary schools, promoting reading for pleasure, selecting materials, and ensuring stock meets educational needs. Enhanced DBS is required, and experience in education settings is desirable.

Qualifications

• Enhanced DBS is required for this role.
• Experience with school libraries or education settings is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Participate in delivering the project loans scheme to schools, including selection of materials and ensuring stock is up to date.
• Promote the School Library Service to educational settings to increase subscriptions.
• Demonstrate excellent time management and the ability to meet deadlines.
• Provide flexible team support to handle peaks and troughs in workloads.
• Foster an interest and knowledge of children's literature and reading promotion.

Skills

Time management

Flexibility

Children's literature knowledge

Job description

About us at Hounslow

We'd love you to join us at the London Borough of Hounslow. Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be.

We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can-do culture, we've built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London's most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential. We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

About our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock. All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in "Harness the Mix". It's about breaking down barriers between our parts and people and unlocking the problem-solving power of our amazing mix of minds. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce, and we are committed to being an inclusive employer.

We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have a thriving employee network group and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. There's space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Our Benefits

If you join us, you'll have access to a range of employee benefits. Read more about these here.

About The Role

We have an opportunity within one of Hounslow's specialist services. The School Library Service is looking for an enthusiastic and passionate library assistant to join the growing and dedicated team. You will be assisting the team to deliver the project loan service and reading events to promote reading for pleasure and books to schools across West London.

The successful candidate will have a good understanding of education settings for all ages and abilities. They will have knowledge of the National Curriculum and how this is taught in schools, an interest in children's literature and a passion for promoting reading for pleasure to children of all ages.

About The Team You'll Be Working In

The aim of the School Library Service is to provide schools with essential resources to support the delivery of the National Curriculum. Through the delivery of the project loan service, schools receive bespoke boxes of books tailored to teachers' individual needs. The service also provides invaluable support and advice to schools on their library and reading provision to pupils.

The service provides a calendar of events to primary and secondary schools to promote reading and broaden children's awareness and enthusiasm for literature. Working closely with secondary librarians and primary school reading leads, events are evaluated and adapted to suit the needs of schools.

The team works closely with the public libraries in Hounslow to deliver library and book promotion directly to children. Taking part in the delivery of the Summer Reading Challenge and school visits to public libraries, staff actively promote the importance of public libraries and their positive impact on the residents of the borough.

About You

The key responsibilities of the role of library assistant at the School Library Service are:

• Take part in the delivery of the project loans scheme to schools, including selection of materials to satisfy requests and ensuring stock available is of a high standard and relevant.
• Take a positive role in promoting the School Library Service to educational settings in Hounslow and neighbouring boroughs, to increase the number of schools subscribing to the service.
• You will have excellent time management skills, and the ability to prioritise work, manage your own time effectively to meet deadlines.
• You will demonstrate the ability to work flexibly to provide support to the team as required, responding to the needs of the service to meet peaks and troughs in workloads.
• You will have an interest and knowledge of children's literature and educational materials and the role they play in inspiring confidence in reading.

Essential for This Role:

Enhanced DBS is required for this role.

Read more about the work you'll be doing in the Role Profile.

Don't meet every single requirement?

We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can't tick every box. At Hounslow, we realise the 'perfect candidate' doesn't exist. So, if you can do most of what we're looking for, go ahead and apply. You may be just the right candidate for the job or be perfect for one of our other roles!

When Interviews Will Be Held And Who To Contact

The key information you need about the role should be in the Role Profile, but if you have any further questions about the role, please contact:

Email: [e-mail]

Interviews for this job will be held during week commencing 5th October 2026