Library Assistant

Location: All roles will require staff to travel to any of Croydon’s Libraries and work in the Archives Research Room to ensure they are open to advertised hours.

About the Role We are looking for people who have a passion for customer service and for working as part of a team delivering Croydon’s library services directly to our customers. This will include providing high quality customer service, supporting the delivery of activities and events and assisting customers with accessing online information and other resources. You will also be promoting all services to a wide range of customers.

You will need to be

• Customer focussed with excellent communication skills
• Interested in libraries and serving Croydon’s diverse communities
• A team worker
• Enthusiastic in your approach to engagement with customers of all ages

Candidate requirements:

Essential knowledge:

• Sound understanding of what constitutes a successful library service
• Understanding of health and safety; and safeguarding in a library environment
• Understanding of the local government context and the role that libraries can play in addressing the wider priorities of a council (such as health, wellbeing, safeguarding, worklessness, culture etc)

Essential skills and abilities:

• Ability to interact with internal and external contacts, displaying a professional attitude at all times
• Empathy with children and young people
• Able to work largely unsupervised whilst remaining a team player
• Understanding of community engagement, ability to involve the local communities in library service, and ability to host both school and group visits
• Ability to demonstrate proven customer focus and customer service skills
• Ability to communicate confidently and assertively with colleagues, customers, volunteers and partners
• Ability to be an effective initial point of contact for customer enquiries for libraries and archives
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to be resilient and embrace change
• Flexibility to work outside of normal office hours
• Committed, loyal, highly motivated and tenacious
• Sufficient proficiency in the operation of the Library service ICT to resolve the majority of library service issues
• Ability to competently use the core Microsoft Office suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook), communication tools such as MS Teams and library management systems (LMS)

Essential experience:

• Experience of delivering a customer-focused service
• Experience of working effectively as part of a team
• Experience of working in a results-orientated environment

Special conditions:

• To be able to work at any Croydon library
• Ability to travel between libraries
• Ability to work the hours stated; including evenings and Saturdays
• Wearing of a photo ID/name badge
• Adhere to the council dress code

You can find out more about our libraries and activities here: https://libraries.croydon.gov.uk/bookshelf

More details of the role, including the role profile & person specification and online application form can be found on Croydon Council’s job search site.

PLEASE NOTE: You will need to complete a Croydon Council application detailing how you meet the essential candidate requirements above to apply for this role - this will be sent to you after expressing an interest below.