Community and Library Assistant

About Us At Hounslow

We’d love you to join us at the London Borough of Hounslow! Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be.

We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can-do culture, we’ve built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London’s most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential. We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

About Our Commitment To Diversity And Inclusion

We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock. All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in “Harness the Mix”. It's about breaking down barriers between our parts and people and unlocking the problem-solving power of our amazing mix of minds. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce and we are committed to being an inclusive employer.

We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have thriving employee network groups and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. There’s space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Our Benefits

About The Role

An exciting opportunity has arisen for the appointment of a full time Community & Library Assistant to join the teams within the Chiswick Hub of Libraries.

The successful candidate will need a strong skill set across customer service, communication and organisation as well as be able to offer flexibility.

In this role you will be working as part of a team to help our customers with enquiries, assisting them to use our services, and delivering our activities for children and adults.

Some weekend working and one late night a week until 8pm is required as part of this role.

About The Team You’ll Be Working In

This role will be based within the Chiswick Hub of the Hounslow Library Service, this hub consists of 4 Libraries – Brentford, Chiswick, Heston & Osterley. There are a further 7 public libraries within Hounslow Library Service, and on occasion you may be required to work at any of these.

All of our Libraries are community hubs which provide spaces for our residents to study and learn, build social connection through activities and access advice and guidance.

We have over 230,000 items available to residents excluding the specialist collections and c.345,000 annual visits. In June 2020 Hounslow Libraries joined The Libraries Consortium this gave our members access to more than 3 million items.

About You

• Customer focused approach with a helpful and cooperative attitude
• Comfortable using different types of IT software/hardware, including the MS Office suite, library information databases, internet search, and specialised Library-specific applications.
• Ability to work calmly, efficiently and accurately under pressure and in challenging scenarios.
• Ability to show initiative as will be on occasion working in a library without on-site supervision.
• Ability to prepare and deliver vibrant and engaging Storytime sessions and other activities for both children and adults.

If the points below resonate with you, we’d love you to put in an application:

• Ensure the best possible visitor experience and acting as the first point of contact for customer enquiries for the wider council in person, by phone, or email
• Offer advice and guidance to customers on the use of library materials and equipment including public-use IT and reference and stock enquiries.
• Organise and participate in the delivery of activities for children and adults in line with the service Events and Engagement Plan including making bookings for and promoting functions/events.
• Take a positive role in promoting services on site, ensuring the library/ community hub is always well-presented and tidy, with a high standard of display and promotional materials
• Ability to complete digital assistance, supporting individuals to register online accounts, search for information on the website/Hounslow Connect etc.

Qualifications

• English A-C GCSE or equivalent or able to demonstrate an equivalent level of attainment through qualification or experience in a relevant discipline.

Essential For The Role

• Enhanced DBS check is required for the role.

When Interviews Will Be Held And Who To Contact

The key information you need about the role should be in the role profile, but if you have any further questions about the role, please contact:

Email: Carol.Milstead@hounslow.gov.uk

Interviews for this job will be held during week commencing 17th March 2025.