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An established industry player is seeking a dedicated individual to join their Conservation Department. This role focuses on assessing and managing hazards within the extensive collections, including heavy metals and pesticides. You will collaborate with colleagues to enhance workflows and ensure safe practices. Your contributions will be vital in developing training materials and resources to raise awareness about collection hazards. This position offers a unique opportunity to impact the preservation of valuable cultural heritage while working in a dynamic environment that values innovation and collaboration.
Location: St Pancras
Contract: Fixed Term for 8 months
Hours: Full time (36 hours)
Grade: B
Salary: £ 34,608 per annum
The British Library is looking for someone to join the Conservation Department to undertake work in the delivery of the project Hazards in Collections. The focus of the role will be to support the British Library on a review of specific hazards within the BL collections, focusing on heavy metals (arsenic, lead, mercury and its compounds) and pesticides in printed books and manuscripts.
The post holder will be responsible for researching our collection to identify hazards and providing recommendations on their management during the various activities in which we interact with collections. They will work alongside BL colleagues to review workflows (e.g. conservation activities, digitisation, retrieval collection, access to readers), including our policies, standard operating procedures and risk assessment, and ensure our processes are practical and safe, changes are agreed, communicated and implemented.
The post holder’s role will be crucial in the delivery of training and workshops around the library, documenting all aspects of the development process and providing clear guidelines and documentation (e.g. training material, videos and/or eLearning modules for internal use, leaflets, posters) and other resources to support the BL in bringing awareness on hazards in the Collection.
We are the national library of the UK and we are here for everyone. Our shelves hold over 170 million items – a living collection that gets bigger every day. Although our roots extend back centuries, we aim to collect everything published in the UK today, tomorrow and far into the future. Our trusted experts care for this collection and open it up for everyone to spark new discoveries, ideas and to help people do incredible things.
We have millions of books, and much more besides. Our London and Yorkshire sites hold collections ranging from newspapers and maps to sound recordings, patents, academic journals, as well as a copy of every UK domain website and blog. Our public spaces provide a place to research, to meet friends, to start up a new business or simply to get inspired by visiting our galleries and events. We work with partners and libraries across the UK and the world to make sure that as many people as possible have the chance to use and explore our collections, events, and expertise. And we’re always open online, along with more and more of our digitised collection.
Closing date: 14 May 2025
Interview date: 02 & 03 June 2025
If you have any questions, please contact BL-recruitment@bl.uk