King's College London

About Us

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

Libraries & Collections comprises four departments: Education & Learning, Research & Impact, Service Design & Delivery, along with Business Operations. We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, which manages the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond.

This role is based Service Design & Delivery, which is responsible for designing and delivering services for Libraries & Collections that enhance the experience for individuals from across the King’s community.

About The Role

Library Assistants contribute to the work of the Frontline Services team by supporting the delivery and operation of our first-line enquiry service across Libraries & Collections; enabling users to access our resources, services and facilities and maintaining library spaces. Library Assistants act as an identifiable and welcoming presence for our users and have an understanding of the breadth of the library’s work in order to respond, signpost or refer enquiries effectively and promote our services.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates interested in supporting delivery of evaluation and design of a service, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in Library stock and circulation tasks, customer service, and admin duties. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in data gathering, project work, adapting to new technologies and systems, and reacting flexibly to new working practices.

All grade 3 staff are assigned a placement brief within a particular team but may be moved across to a different placement brief elsewhere within Libraries & Collections in order to support service needs or your development.

All Libraries & Collections staff are encouraged to take responsibility for their own performance and development, through agreeing clear objectives, maintaining professional awareness and reflecting on own performance. We expect all colleagues to role-model a positive, proactive, flexible and committed approach that encourages others.

You will be required to participate in frontline services as required, including contributing towards a rota for evening and weekend working.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

Please note both vacancies are tuesday-saturday shift patterns.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience: 

Essential criteria

1. Relevant work experience and/or education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in a Library or customer-facing service. Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications or other training 
2. Ability to work as part of a team in a fast-changing environment 
3. Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively question and understand user needs and enquiries 
4. Experience in positively and proactively dealing with routine problems 
5. Commitment to equity, equality, diversity and inclusivity in your own learning and ways of working 
6. Excellent oral and written communication skills 
7. Excellent organisation and time management skills 
8. Commitment to personal accountability and continuous improvement, driving own professional development

Desirable criteria

1. Ability to work effectively and proactively with other teams and stakeholders 
2. Experience of working in a customer-oriented environment 
3. Experience of using library catalogues and resource discovery tools 
4. Experience of or proven interest in working within higher education environment 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process. 

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community. 

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held w/c 9th September. 

We are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service and/or Occupational Health clearances.