Librarian Specialist (Band 6) - Specialist Librarian - Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board

We provide healthcare services to people living in Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf county borough areas, serving a population of around 450,000. We are ideally situated between Wales’s capital city, Porthcawl to the west, and the stunning scenery in the Brecon Beacons.

Our vision is to care for our communities and patients by preventing ill-health, promoting better health, providing excellent services and reducing the need for inpatient care wherever possible through the provision of strengthened home, primary and community care.

We value the diversity of our staff and welcome applications from people from protected groups under the Equality Act 2010, this specifically includes age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/reassignment, race/nationality, religion/belief, disability, pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnership.

Cwm Taf Morgannwg is a Living Wage Employer.

Please check your email account regularly. Successful applicants will receive all recruitment related correspondence via the email account registered on the application form.

All applicants are invited to apply in Welsh or English, and no preference will be given to applications submitted in either language.

Job overview

Opportunity for a Specialist Librarian working between Prince Charles (Merthyr Tydfil) and Royal Glamorgan (Llantrisant) Hospitals, South Wales.

Are you a qualified librarian with a passion for supporting quality healthcare within NHS Wales? Our Library & Knowledge Service is seeking a skilled Specialist Librarian (Band 6) to join our team. As part of our team, you'll be working across both sites to provide multidisciplinary resources, current awareness services, and training to healthcare staff and students. This is a permanent, part-time post working 22.5 hours per week, over four days (Mon, Tues, Thurs & Fri).

In this busy role, you'll have the chance to gain a wide range of experience in healthcare library provision, from user education and training to literature searching and promoting our library services. You'll also support nursing and healthcare students on placement from the University of South Wales and maintain positive relationships with the university. You will deputise as needed for the Library Services Managers.

To be successful in this role, you'll need to be a qualified librarian with experience using electronic information resources and outstanding information retrieval skills. You'll also be an excellent communicator with strong interpersonal skills and enjoy working in a team on diverse tasks.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work within occupational policies to assist the Library Services Manager in the delivery and management of a full range of high quality, proactive library and knowledge services.

CTM Library and Knowledge Service plays an important role in supporting evidence-based healthcare, undergraduate and postgraduate education, clinical and managerial decision making and governance, quality and service improvement, continuing professional development and research. It provides services for staff based in the hospitals, and primary care in the area covered by the Health Board and funded students on placement. It facilitates high quality patient care throughout the Health Board and the wider healthcare community.

As the Specialist Librarian the main aims of the role are to provide a literature searching/evidence service, to lead and manage provision of current awareness services, to lead and manage onsite and outreach training and user support service and to lead and manage onsite and outreach promotion and marketing of service and resources. The post holder also deputises for the Library Services Managers (PCH and RGH).

The ability to speak Welsh is desirable for this post; Welsh and/or English speakers are equally welcome to apply.

Working for our organisation

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board is part of the NHS Wales family. Our Health Board provides primary, secondary and community health and wellbeing services to around 450,000 people living in three County Boroughs: Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil, and Rhondda Cynon Taf.

We live by our core values:

• We listen, learn and improve
• We treat everyone with respect
• We all work together as one team

We are a proud local employer; around 80% of our 15,000 workforce live within our region, making our staff not only our lifeblood of our organisation but of the diverse communities that we serve.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will:

• Deliver a high quality general and reference enquiries service to members of the clinical and managerial teams, students on placement and other library users on request (in person, by phone or email).
• Communicate with and guide users to suitable information sources to access the evidence they require.
• Analyse and interpret literature search requests from staff and students, to support patient care, research and education.
• Use expert technical and professional knowledge to undertake complex and comprehensive literature searches as requested, interpreting user information requirements to select appropriate databases, construct search strategies, present search results and liaise with users on appraisal of results.
• Use critical appraisal skills to select and evaluate relevant information to support evidence based practice.
• Support clinical and management decision-making by providing relevant information.
• Deal with non-routine enquiries from library users, signposting to use of library resources in catalogues, databases etc.
• Plan and lead on the provision of proactive, targeted and detailed current awareness services for individual users and departments.

You will be able to find a full Job description and Person Specification attached within the supporting documents or please click “Apply now” to view in Trac.

Person specification

Qualifications and/or Knowledge

• Degree in library or information-related studies or a postgraduate qualification in library or information studies.
• Chartered Member of the Institute for Library & Information Professionals (CILIP)
• Evidence of Continuing Professional Development
• Knowledge of the range of resources relevant to healthcare professionals
• ECDL or equivalent IT qualification
• Teaching/training qualification
• Knowledge of critical appraisal of healthcare literature.

Experience

• Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills
• Recent library experience in a health, special or academic library including experience of enquiry work, information retrieval, and user education.
• Experience of delivering training / teaching
• Excellent level of computer literacy including MS Office, web based applications, email
• Experience of working in a health library environment
• Experience of web development
• Experience of literature searching using a variety of bibliographic databases
• Able to produce instructional and comprehensive training documents
• Excellent organisational skills including problem solving and planning skills for complex issues.
• Experience in staff supervision.

Aptitude and Abilities

• An understanding of current information / library developments
• Familiarity with current issues in health information
• Experience of providing a current awareness service using databases and/or using Knowledgeshare.

To work in the UK, all candidates who are not UK or Republic of Ireland (RoI) nationals require sponsorship to obtain either a Health and Care visa or Skilled Worker visa, unless you have permission to work via another route. Non UK / RoI candidates wishing to apply should self-assess the likelihood of obtaining a Certificate of Sponsorship by visiting Work in the UK. If you are eligible for the Health and Care visa, application costs are lower and you do not need to pay the annual Immigration Health Surcharge.