Library Assistant

Position Details

Academic Services

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,546 to £29,171, with potential progression once in post to £32,595 (pro-rata for part time positions)

Grade: 4

There are 3 roles available:

Full Time, Fixed Term Contract until August 2027 or 

Part Time (24 hours per week), Permanent or 

Part Time (20 hours per week), Permanent

Closing date: 25th October 2026

Please apply as early as possible as this advert will close upon receipt of sufficient applications.

Our offer to you 

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Role Summary

You will act as a key point of contact for the full range of library customers (internal and external). You will provide advice to colleagues within the Library and the wider University. When senior staff are not on site you will use your initiative and take responsibility for the service. The post holder will usually work in one of three functional areas: Enquiry Services, Stock and Circulation or Front of House. In order to flexibly use resource you may be offered the opportunity to work elsewhere in the department or the wider University.

The available work patterns are below:

FULL TIME: Mon : 11am – 7pm , Tues 2pm – 10pm, Wed: 11am – 7pm, Thurs: 11am – 7pm and Sunday : 8am – 4pm. 

PART TIME 24 hours: Mon : 12noon – 7pm , Tues 12noon – 7pm, Wed: 12noon  – 7pm  and Sunday : 4pm – 10pm.

PART TIME 20 hours: Tues: 11am – 7pm  , Fri: 11am – 7pm and Sat: 4pm – 10pm.

These patterns have been designed to meet service demand for this frontline role and are non negotiable.

You will be asked to attend a recruitment day which has several elements including a group activity. For this reason the date cannot be changed.

Main Duties

Generic duties:

• Supporting library procedures for borrowing, renewing, returning and reserving information resources; dealing with more complex queries which will be referred to them. 
• Ensuring that services, spaces and facilities provided within the libraries are well maintained and reporting issues as appropriate. 
• Supporting and delivering customer relationship activity such as surveys, feedback, and events.
• Intervening when issues are reported such as noise, eating, incident reporting and lost property, and identifying appropriate referral routes for students in academic or physical/mental distress. 
• Providing assistance with navigation in the buildings, the use of facilities and appointments with staff working in the building; library equipment support.
• Assisting with user education programmes for library customers and helping to promote the University and the Library to visitors and potential students, for example, by conducting library tours.
• Training of colleagues within Library Customer Support e.g. staff inductions and casual staff.
• All Senior Library Assistants are expected to participate in rotas which enable Library Customer Support to provide staffed services during advertised opening hours. This may include working outside core hours (e.g. evenings, weekends and University closed days/bank holidays), both within their usual team and, where necessary, in other teams within Library Customer Support. Senior Library Assistant will ensure that the evening and weekend service runs smoothly when Assistant Managers are not present by:
• Coordinating the work of colleagues, with particular attention to handling queries and transactions.
• Handling difficult situations (such as unhappy library users, security alerts, fire evacuations etc.).
• Liaising as necessary with University Security and with agency security staff working in the Library.
• Contacting senior Library Services staff as necessary for guidance.
• Undertaking handover to agency security staff during 24/7 opening and supervising opening and closing routines at other times.
• Maintaining cash levels and supervising cash handling procedures.
• Reporting back to the relevant Assistant Managers and informing them of issues and problems which have arisen (or could arise) during evening and weekends.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others. 

Postholders will usually be based in one of the following Functional Areas:

Front of House

• Welcoming library users and providing directions to facilities and services; registering new users and visitors to the Library; answering queries regarding access control, membership, room booking, visitor day pass systems, handling all issues from initial contact to resolution; providing information regarding other University facilities and events which are taking place on campus; making appropriate referrals to colleagues within and beyond Library Services.
• Maintaining records of external members of Library Services; undertaking administration relating to reciprocal access schemes, corresponding with registered external users regarding membership renewal; updating publications and information regarding external access to the University’s libraries. 
• Ensuring the Training Suite rooms, and other spaces where appropriate, are all well maintained and prepared in readiness for events; checking layouts of furniture, ensuring IT equipment is in place and reporting problems as appropriate; supporting events and ensuring a high quality customer experience. 

Enquiry Services

• Supporting researchers, students and staff to gain maximum benefit from the extensive range of physical and electronic resources managed by the Library; achieved by understanding the needs of users, providing initial advice in relation to different information resources and advising on relevant search techniques.
• Explaining library procedures for borrowing, reserving and requesting information resources and identifying improvements to workflows to ensure service quality is continually improved.
• Providing support with basic/intermediate first line IT enquiries relating to password self-service system, printing, Wi-Fi, email, Canvas, cluster PCs.
• Refer users to specialists within Library Services and other teams. Handling and signposting requests for support (for example, from users with disabilities, or those requiring additional skills support).

Stock and Circulation

• Welcoming users to the Allport Room; giving them access to material they have requested from the Reserve, maintaining a safe and appropriate study environment in the Room, offering assistance with copying, scanning and printing, answering queries about resources and facilities relating to the Research Reserve. 
• Mediating access for library users who need to browse and consult material in situ on the shelves in the Research Reserve, briefing them on health and safety and access requirements; checking that their requirements can be fulfilled by providing consultation access or by supplying material for loan or use within the Main Library; maintaining a record of those who have entered the Research Reserve and ensuring that the area has been completely vacated by closing time of the service. 
• Providing an out-loans service by checking the availability of materials requested and working with Collections Assistants to retrieve material from within the libraries (including the Research Reserve). 
• Ensuring such requests are compliant with copyright/other laws/restrictions and communicating any breaches to the requester, identifying alternative solutions as appropriate. 
• Supporting the work of Collections Assistants in the team; ensuring that material returned via the sortation system is re-shelved in accordance with agreed targets, dealing with queries and material which cannot be handled by the Collections Assistants, organising the repair and tidying of material held on the open shelves in the Main Library.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to A level or equivalent qualification level, or substantial equivalent relevant experience. 
• Substantial practical experience of customer support.
• Good numeracy, literacy and classification skills with excellent interpersonal and communication skills. 
• Comprehensive knowledge, understanding and the ability to use complex and specialist processes (e.g. for Main Library stock reserve) and systems (e.g. British Library System, sortation system).
• Ability to act as the escalation point and source of advice for Library Assistants on many different specialist processes, IT systems and databases.
• Ability to work with accuracy to required standards and deadlines and to demonstrate attention to detail.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to plan own work and that of others.
• Demonstrable ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Proven ability to work reliably and flexibly in a busy environment, preferably in a library or in a busy customer focused environment.
• Excellent and demonstrable customer service skills.
• Experience of receiving and resolving customer enquiries and the ability and willingness to adopt a friendly customer orientated approach in a busy service environment.
• Good communication skills including the ability to ensure action or acceptance by a colleague or customer by listening to and understanding another person’s request or perspective, influencing, and providing a well-reasoned response.
• Good IT literacy including Microsoft office and on line systems. In addition, the ability and willingness to further develop skills in this area and to learn and adapt to new technologies. 
• Knowledge and substantial practical experience of using many different specialist processes, IT systems (e.g. library management systems or equivalent) and databases (e.g. for catalogue systems).
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

Informal enquiries to Teresa Jordan, email: t.jordan@bham.ac.uk 

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.