About the role
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/interm