Relief Community Library Assistant

Cambridgeshire County Council; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 1,240,000 - 1,515,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing package

Addit. annual leave (4 weeks)

Flexible holidays

Pension AVCs

Development opportunities

Volunteer hours

Peer support groups

Employee recognition awards

Our Cambs Rewards discounts

Job summary

Cambridgeshire County Council is recruiting for a versatile individual to support Cambridge Central Library. The role requires availability across the week and year to cover shifts at short notice, providing friendly customer service at the public library and handling a range of duties within our community library team.

Ideal candidates are passionate about public libraries, adaptable, and able to work with diverse customers.

Qualifications

• Experience in delivering good customer service.
• Ability to communicate clearly with diverse customers.
• Willingness to learn library systems and IT.
• Strong teamwork and adaptability in a busy public service environment.

Responsibilities

• Provide friendly, front-line public services to library users.
• Promote library offers and activities.
• Support events, including Rhymetime and Storytime sessions.
• Assist in partnership initiatives and outreach work.
• Potentially assist with UK Visa and Immigration Biometrics verification service, with training offered.

Skills

Customer service

Interpersonal skills

Team player

Flexibility

Job description

The following content displays a map of the jobs location - Cambridge Central Library

Location:

Cambridge Central Library

Closing Date:

25/10/2026

Job Category:

Libraries

Organisation:

Cambridgeshire County Council

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.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and versatile person to help us serve the Cambridge community when our staff is sick or on leave. The ideal candidate will have availability across the whole week (Monday to Sunday) and throughout the year to pick up shifts during our opening hours at relatively short notice.

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.

We want to recognise and celebrate the diversity of our local communities and be responsive to their needs. We also want to ensure that we are a fair and equitable employer, striving to achieve a diverse workforce that has the ability to understand, communicate and interact with people across cultures. We therefore encourage applications from all areas of our community.

Interviews will provisionally be held at Central Library, Cambridge on Tuesday 3rd November.

For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Ruth Long or Hannah Griffiths through [e-mail].

Please note: appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

What will you be doing?

• 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, including delivering Rhymetime and Storytime sessions
• Supporting the wider aims and objectives of the service by assisting in delivery of partnership initiatives and outreach work.
• Potentially helping to deliver the UK Visa and Immigration Biometrics verification service which we offer at Cambridge Central Library, for which training will be given.

About you

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. They will be excellent at multi-tasking, be quick and efficient, and enjoy working under pressure.

The candidate 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,capabilityand 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
• 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 in hours or workplace location

Please note: all applications must be made online and we cannot accept CVs. Please do not apply if you have fixed patterns of availability (e.g. weekend only, outside of term, summer, etc.).

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.

Cambridgeshire County Council 1.48K subscribers

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.