Staff Development Weekly Update

ALN Staff Development Update #97 – 15 April 2026

This weekly update is intended to keep you up to date on ALN’s staff development programme; to highlight interesting initiatives being undertaken by ALN or its members; and to promote job opportunities in our member libraries. If you have any queries or any content you’d like to include, please get in touch at: academiclibrariesnorth@sconul.ac.uk

ALN Events

May 2026

** Date for your Diary ** Marking Mental Health Awareness Week
Hosted by: ALN MH&W Team
Date: Tuesday 12 May 2026
Time: Starting at 1pm
Platform: Online via Teams
More information to follow soon.

Systematic Review Event (sponsored by Covidence)
Hosted by: Newcastle University
Date: Thursday 14 May 2026
Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
Location: Newcastle University
Please note: there is no longer a cap on the number of people who can attend from one institution.

June 2026

SHU Teachmeet – Reaching every learner: Engagement strategies for teaching library and academic skills
Now open for bookings!
Hosted by: Sheffield Hallam University
Date: Thursday 4 June 2026
Time: 9.30am – 4.00pm
Location: Sheffield Hallam University

** New ** ALN Data Showcase Now open for bookings!
Hosted by: ALN Service Engagement & Impact Group
Date: Wednesday 17 June 2026
Time: 10.00 – 3.00pm
Platform: Online via Teams

Call for Contributions

** New ** Setting up EDI Working Groups
Hosted by: ALN EDI Action Group
Date: Thursday 25 June 2026
Time: TBC
Platform: Online via Teams

We are hoping that this event will provide you with the opportunity to hear the experiences of colleagues in other ALN institutions who have set up EDI Working Groups at their home libraries. They will share the good, the bad and the ugly of creating and maintaining these groups.

We’re likely to have 3 or 4 short presentations and an opportunity for Q&A/group discussions.

Please contact us at academiclibrariesnorth@sconul.ac.uk if you could contribute your experiences to the event – we’d love to hear from you!

ALN Skill Up Series

New series – Skill Up with ALN!
Have you seen that we introduced a new series last academic year called Skill Up with ALN? These hour long sessions offer an opportunity to learn about different roles and areas of library life and aim to demystify areas of the library service. We have already run two sessions this year and have some more topic ideas for the 2024/25 academic year but if you have any ideas, please do share them with us.

ALN SD Offer Infographic

Do you think you know all that ALN offers to support your staff development? Why not check out our Staff Development Infographic to see the full list of activities. Let us know how you got on. Did you get all of them?

Frontline Forum 2025/26

The provisional date for the next forum is Tuesday 2 June 2026, 2.00 – 3.30 with a theme of supporting neurodivergent students (to be confirmed). More information, including how to book your place, to follow soon!

The latest forum of 2025/26 took place on Wednesday 25 March 2026, 10.00 – 11.30am with a theme of Encouraging responsible use of Spaces. The forum had a specific focus on proactive activities and campaigns to support busier periods around exams and assessments. Please get in touch if you’d like to see the presentations shared at the forum.

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About the Forums

The Frontline Forum is an online discussion and development space for teams working directly with students and users. The forums are an opportunity to share best practice, engage with other ALN activities and learn about different service models and delivery types offered by different universities. The forum is aimed at staff who work on frontline desks and provide the first line of support to students and other library users.

ALN Conference 2026

Booking for #ALN26 open! 

Grab yourself a place at the online day or the in-person day – or both! We have an early bird offer as well as a bulk booking option (further details on the website).

Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal to present at the conference. We got a great number of submissions and we’re excited to see how they translate into the programme for the two days. The team is busy reviewing the submissions and will be meeting later this month to make some decisions and to start to pull a programme together. We will share this as soon as we can.

As a reminder, the theme of our conference is ‘Reimagining Openness in Academic Libraries’ and will be looking at what “open” really means in academic libraries today. We are confident that the theme will appeal to a broad spectrum of library staff and we would love to receive submissions on scholarly communications, digital preservation, teaching and learning, metadata, collection development, or community engagement – and any other area of the library service to see how you’re grappling with openness in practice.

Dates for your diary:

Online Day – Wednesday 24 June 2026 – we’re delighted to announce that Professor Stephen Pinfield, Professor of Information Services Management at the University of Sheffield, will be our keynote speaker at our online day.

In-person Day – Monday 6 July 2026 (Dalton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University) – we’re also delighted to announce that Caroline Ball, Community Engagement Lead for the Open Book Collective (OBC), will be our keynote speaker at our in-person day.

If you have any queries about the conference, please contact ALNConferenceTeam@gmail.com.

ALN EDI Innovation Fund 2026

The ALN EDI Innovation Fund aims to provide small grants to ALN institutions (up to a max of £1000) to support a project, event or activity which will improve, enhance or develop approaches to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).

Timeline 2026 

The application process for this year’s ALN EDI Innovation Fund is now closed! Thank you to everyone who submitted a bid. We will be looking at them over the next couple of weeks and will get back to you with a decision by Friday 24 April.

These are the key dates for 2026:

• Deadline for bids: Thursday 2 April 2026
• Successful bids informed by: Friday 24 April 2026
• Projects start: May 2026
• Projects duration: 9-12 months

Successful projects will be expected to share information about their projects at the end of the project period in the form of, for example, a report, a conference presentation or an online resource. We run an event at the end of the projects to celebrate the successes, share information on the type of projects that were funded and to give inspiration to those hoping for funding for their project.

Criteria for funding

The following criteria are used to assess the bids:

• Is it a collaborative project including 2 or more ALN members? Or does it outline how the work of the project will enable collaboration?
• Does it outline what the expected impact of the project will be?
• Does it demonstrate how the outputs and learning of the project will be shared and disseminated across the breadth of the ALN community, e.g. a conference presentation, an online resource etc?
• You can apply for up to £1000 for your project (but you can also apply for less if you don’t feel you’ll need the full £1000). Please ensure you know how the money will be spent and your costs are fully explained in your submission.

ALN Group co-Chair Vacancies

We’re looking for co-Chairs for a few of our groups. It’s a great professional development opportunity – please get in touch if you are interested or would like to know a bit more about what it entails.

These are the groups with current vacancies:

• Academic Librarians
• Customer Services
• Leaders’ Network 
• Metadata and Linked Data Group
• Technology
• User Experience CoP

You can see more information here on what the groups do, along with videos of some of our current chairs talking about their experiences chairing a group, as well as our role overview, providing more details on the roles.

External Opportunities

• Workshop: Out the Bag – Stories, Stitching, and Social Change – Tuesday 21 April 2026 (Two workshop sessions available) This workshop is led by Janette Porter, LJMU Lecturer with extensive experience working alongside communities affected by homelessness, addiction, and mental health challenges.

• Workshop: Creating the Comic – Storytelling, Collaboration, and What Comes Next – 22 April 2026, 2–4pm This combined talk and workshop features Hannah Baumeister, Senior Lecturer at LJMU, who will share the process behind Drawing on Forced Marriage: Teaching Tough Topics Through Comics.

SCONUL webinar on AI prompt libraries 
Date: Friday 15 May 2026
Would your library benefit from an AI prompt library to support users? Or are you already at the planning stage and would like to benefit from the expertise of those who have already done the groundwork? SCONUL’s AI working group is hosting a webinar, exploring two examples of prompt libraries created by Virgina Tech in the US and the University of Kent in the UK. The webinar will explore the process of development and management of their prompt libraries and discuss the lessons for the SCONUL community and will be joined by the following speakers:

• Ginny Pannabecker, Assistant Dean and Director, Research Collaboration and Engagement (RCE) at Virginia Tech, University Libraries and liaison to life sciences programs, who will give a short introduction on the Institutional context at Virginia Tech.
• Yinlin Chen, Associate Director, Centre for Digital Research & Scholarship, University Libraries at Virginia Tech, who will explain why the prompt library was set up, how it is managed, used, and how it sits within wider approach to teaching prompt engineering skills.
• Oliver Perrott-Webb, AI and Education Specialist at University of Kent, who will discuss their approach to the development of their prompt library.

SCONUL webinar series on the HE Reference Models
HERMS Webinar 2: HE Reference Models as a tool for institutional transformation
Date: Thursday 21 May 2026, 14.00 – 15.30
The HE Reference Models are being used as a tool for those leading institutional restructuring and transformation programmes, often alongside, or integrated with other frameworks. This webinar will include a deeper dive into how the HE Reference Models are being used to inform institutional change processes. It will also introduce the new HE Service Reference Model which is being developed to help support this type of work. It will hear from Mary Millard, Executive Director of Faculty Operations at University of Bristol and sponsor of Bristol’s Professional Services Transformation Programme which has led the development of the institution’s service catalogue based on the HERMs; Iain McCracken, Director of Service Delivery at the London School of Economics. Iain is leading the development of the new HE Service Reference Model and he will set out the background to its development; share the alpha version of the Service Model and discuss how the SCONUL community can engage with this work.
More information to follow later on future sessions in this series.

External Calls for Contributions

• You work in a UK academic library with responsibility for the work of others.
• Your job title includes “Head of,” “Manager,” “Lead,” “Director,” or a reasonable equivalent.      

Job Opportunities

Library Advisor – Part Time (2 posts)
Location: University of Liverpool
Salary: £25,804 – £28,778 pa (pro rata)
Closing Date: Thursday 16 April 2026

As Library Advisor, you will join a welcoming, high-performing team to provide a customer focused, high-quality service to library users.
You will provide an excellent front-line service and administrative support, playing a key part in contributing to the development of student-focussed services.
This is a key role within a fast-paced, front-facing team providing a responsive, interactive and consistent service delivery and support to library users.

Responsibilities and duties include:

• Provide an excellent customer service and support at the first point of contact including face-to-face, on-line and throughout our buildings, engaging and interacting with library users and colleagues.
• Resolve on-line enquiries via our Ticket and Live-chat service.
• Communicate effectively across the service to ensure smooth and consistent service delivery.
• Work on various service points effectively responding to all enquiries on Reception, Helpdesk, on-line platform and Roving duties throughout the buildings, with a view to a `first time resolution’ to enhance the student experience.
• Use the library management system to update user accounts.
• Liaise with other student-centred services to support the student experience.
• Patrol all public areas of the library to ensure appropriate use of facilities & equipment, control noise and disruption, report any building & maintenance issues and help maintain a clean and tidy environment.
• Work together with Space and Facilities team members to support a safe working environment and facilities.
• Assist library users to use various resources and equipment to make best use of our services and resources.
• To assist other teams across the service with administrative work.If you thrive on working as part of a team and want to play a key role in delivering a great customer experience, then please apply.We are advertising for 2 positions. Please state the hours of the role you are interested in being considered for when submitting your application.

Library Assistant
Location: Newcastle University
Salary: £27,319 with progression to £28,778 per annum (pro rata)
Contract: Part Time, Open Ended
Closing Date: Thursday 16 April 2026

The Role

This is an opportunity to join our highly regarded Customer Services team. You will assist in providing excellent information enquiry and circulation services to support staff and students and other users of the University Library. This includes providing help and advice on a range of library enquiries, registering library users, issuing smartcards and regular manual handling including moving books and equipment.

You will possess a minimum of 5 GCSEs at grade C or above or equivalent and have an awareness of the use of IT in library services. Possession of a City and Guilds Library Assistant’s Certificate and/or an NVQ Level 2 or equivalent qualification would be desirable.

Weekend and evening work, including bank holidays and University closure days, will be required. You may work at any Library site but you can expect to work mainly between the Philip Robinson and Law libraries.

There are three part time posts available. As they are part time, they will be paid pro-rata (a percentage of what a full-time role at this grade would be paid). Please indicate when applying which roles you would like to be considered for:

Post 1(18 hours per week) – Monday, Friday and Sunday 2 pm to 8 pm.

Post 2 (23.5 hours per week) – Monday, 9 am to 5 pm, Wednesday, 4 pm to 8 pm and Saturday and Sunday, 8 am to 2 pm.

Post 3 (18.5 hours per week) – Monday, 9 am to 2 pm, Friday 9 am to 5 pm and Sunday 8 am to 2 pm.

During some vacation periods 2 pm to 8 pm shifts will move forward to 11.00 am to 5 pm.

For an informal chat about the roles, please contact Anne Middleton: anne.middleton@ncl.ac.uk

To find out more about our services, please see our website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/

Space & Facilities Assistant 
Location: University of Liverpool
Grade/Salary: Grade 3/£23,061 – £25,804 pa (pro rata)
Contract: Part Time
Closing Date: Saturday 18 April 2026

As Space and Facilities Assistant, you will join a welcoming, high-performing team to provide a customer focused, high-quality service and environment to library users. This is a key, practical role undertaking a range of duties to maintain a safe and comfortable environment in our library buildings. You will play an active part in contributing to the development of student focused services and spaces as part of our front-line team.

Responsibilities and duties include:

• Contribute to the development of all library spaces to enhance the user experience and maintain a safe environment.
• Communicate effectively with all colleagues across various shift patterns to ensure a consistent service delivery and a safe working environment and facilities.
• Participate in relevant training including Manual Handling, First Aid and Fire Warden responsibilities.
• Patrol all public areas of the library to ensure appropriate use of facilities and equipment, follow-up building and maintenance issues and help to maintain a safe, clean and tidy environment.
• Monitor the safety of the building and facilities, reporting any health and safety issues.
• Act as a point of contact for external contractors to support building works.
• Prepare spaces and furniture in preparation for meetings and events.
• Respond to and act on fire alarm and exit activations, taking appropriate action.
• Carry out fire system tests, maintain fire records and carry out appropriate checks on fire doors, emergency lighting and fire alarms.
• Open and close library buildings, when necessary, ensuring appropriate alarm systems are set.
• Liaise with other departments and external agencies to help maintain safety and security in library buildings.
• Monitor printers / photocopiers responding to any issues including checking stock of paper.
• Provide excellent customer service and support responding to building and maintenance issues from colleagues and library users.If you thrive on working as part of a team and want to play a key role in delivering a great customer experience, then please apply. There are two posts available, one post will be 21 hours per week, Thursday to Saturday, the other post will be 28 hours per week, Sunday to Wednesday, please state which post you are interested in being considered for when submitting your application.

Academic Liaison Manager
Location: Manchester Metropolitan University
Grade/Salary: Grade 8/£41,064 to £47,389
Closing Date: Sunday 19 April 2026
Contract Type: Permanent, Full Time

Are you a dynamic people-manager committed to inclusive practice and empowering teams? Do you thrive in a collaborative environment that champions student success? Are you passionate about academic engagement, ready to build impactful relationships and drive innovative library services?

Now is an exciting time to join Library & Cultural Services. We are embarking on an ambitious plan to reimagine our profile and portfolio, including the design and construction of a landmark new building, in support of the University’s Road to 2030 strategy. If you can lead with authenticity, foster a shared culture of innovation, and evidence real impact through student voice and performance metrics, this is your opportunity as Academic Liaison Manager.

About us
We have been proudly driving progress for more than two centuries. As one of the UK’s largest and most popular universities, we’re a force for good, dedicated to delivered outstanding research and excellent education. Much more than a university, we are a place where ambitious people unite as a diverse and inclusive community to make meaningful connections. Where world-class facilities combine with exceptional minds to improve lives through innovation. We welcome those who are committed, talented, and hardworking. People who believe in our values and are as driven as we are to achieve shared goals.

Our community of over 5,100 colleagues work in close partnership every day to bring about positive change regionally, nationally, and globally.

Build a role with purpose, in an environment designed to unlock your potential. Be part of Manchester Met. Be Manchester Met proud. Let’s transform lives together.

About the role
Reporting to the Head of Academic Engagement and Teaching Services, you will lead a team of Academic Liaison Librarians and manage the Student Partner programme, creating meaningful student co‑creation opportunities that shape service development.

You’ll build proactive relationships with faculties, departments, and key stakeholders to understand teaching, learning and research priorities. Working collaboratively with academic colleagues you will ensure collections, learning support and academic liaison activity remains current, relevant and value driven.

A key part of the role is leading data‑informed service and collection development, using performance measures, analytics, student voice and faculty insights to evidence impact and contribute to wider university priorities, including NSS and TEF.

About you

You will:

• Bring excellent leadership skills and a strong track record of motivating high‑performing teams through inclusive and supportive line management.
• Be skilled at building trust, navigating complexity and fostering a collegiate, innovative culture.
• Demonstrate strong analytical, influencing and communication skills, adapting confidently to change.
• Have experience of service innovation, including effective use of digital tools and emerging technologies (such as AI).
• Use evidence to drive decision‑making and demonstrate impact.
• Champion inclusion, user‑centred design and partnership working.
• Excel at building relationships that deliver positive outcomes for students and academic colleagues.
• For more information on the role and the selection criteria please find the Job Description attached below.

Library Services Coordinator
Location: Newcastle University
Salary: £29,588.00 per annum with progression to £31,236
Contract: Part Time, Open Ended
Closing Date: Wednesday 22 April 2026 2026

The Role

Newcastle University Library is a multiple-award winning service. We are the only University Library in the UK to have received the Charter Mark five times, and now hold the Customer Services Excellence award which replaced it. It illustrates our dedication to delivering a friendly, professional and efficient service to all our customers and putting them at the heart of everything we do. We are committed to developing and delivering innovative services as stated in our Library strategic plan.

This is a place-based role in a busy vibrant campus. In this role you will play a key role in ensuring the delivery of consistently high-quality frontline customer focused services across the Library’s extensive opening hours. We are looking for someone who can co-ordinate and supervise colleagues as well taking responsibility for the secure operation of our Library services across all library sites.

The salary for this post will be paid pro-rata according to hours worked.

This is a part-time post, 24 hours per week. The hours of work will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday 4 pm to Midnight during term-time. During vacation periods the hours when the Library closes earlier the hours will be 2 pm to 10 pm. There is also a requirement to work some bank holidays.

Enquiries about this post to Gareth McKay on gareth.mckay@newcastle.ac.uk

Content Acquisition Operations Manager
Location: British Library (Boston Spa)
Salary: £20,106 Per annum (FTE £40,212)
Contract: Part Time, Permanent
Closing Date: Sunday 26 April 2026

An exciting opportunity has arisen to job share as Content Acquisition Operations Manager and lead in all aspects of policy, process and best practice development in relation to acquisitions processing across all the Library’s formats. The post will work in tandem with the opposite job holder to lead multidisciplinary teams and also work effectively with a wide range of relevant internal stakeholders, North and South.

If you have acquisitions expertise, strong leadership skills, and the ability to navigate evolving workflows and organisational change – we’d love to hear from you.

About the role

Working closely with the counterpart job holder, you will lead and coordinate resource planning and delivery of effective processes and workflows across print and digital content acquisition operations at Boston Spa. You will ensure all acquisition related functions and throughput meet required quality standards and are delivered in line with agreed policies, KPIs and SLAs. Leading on change management activities, you will maximise opportunities to improve acquisition workflows in collaboration with colleagues across processing teams in the North and South to support consistent, coordinated service delivery.

About you

We’re looking for someone with:

• Demonstrable experience in a relevant professional capacity, including some direct experience of workflow and resource operations management within a library or content management environment.
• Track record of effective management and prioritisation of resources, including developing effective monitoring and reporting, and the ability to improve performance and deliver efficiencies.
• Proven leadership, interpersonal and human resource management skills, including change management, team-working, participation, delegation, coaching, conflict resolution, performance management and recognition.
• The ability to write and deliver papers, option appraisals, briefings and presentations to senior colleagues and other internal and external stakeholders.
• Good analytical, reasoning skills and problem-solving skills, including the ability to adapt to changing situations and to weigh options and implement solutions that overcome problems in the workplace.

This is a great opportunity to take on a leadership role, shape team practice, and contribute directly to the Library’s mission to preserve and provide access to the national collection.

The role is intended to offer a development and succession-planning opportunity that could be a standalone part time role or combined with an existing role. Interested candidates are encouraged to discuss how the job share will work from an operational point of view with Adele Lavery, Head of Metadata or Kevin Foody, Digital Print Operations Manager.

Due to the nature of the role, management of staff and related workflows, the successful candidate would be required to work predominantly on site.

Irene Manton Archive Project Archivist
Location: University of Leeds
Grade/Salary: Grade 6/£33,951 to £39,906 per annum
Contract: Full Time, Fixed Term
Closing Date: Sunday 26 April 2026

This role will be based on the university campus with scope for it to be undertaken in a hybrid manner. We are also open to discussing flexible working arrangements

Do you have a passion for archive collections and making them accessible to allow society to benefit? Are you committed to meeting goals with high-quality outcomes?

Cultural Collections & Galleries has recently been awarded funding from The National Archives, through the Archives Revealed programme, to catalogue the Irene Manton Archive.

Irene Manton (1904–1988) was a pioneering botanist whose research on ferns and algae helped advance 20thcentury biological study through her use of ultraviolet and electron microscopy. A long serving Professor of Botany at the University of Leeds, she made significant contributions to mid-20th century developments in the field. Her archive offers valuable insight into her scientific work, the international networks she participated in, and the experiences of a woman working in a male dominated area of science. It also reflects the unique connections she drew between art and scientific practice. This project will make her archive fully discoverable, supporting new research into women’s roles in academic science and the visual culture of botanical study.

Cultural Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds holds world-class collections encompassing archives, manuscripts, rare books, and the University’s institutional archive and art collection. Access is delivered through our research centre in the Brotherton Library, our two public galleries, and increasingly through rich online content. Resource discovery and the management of collections data are major challenges for the service and are a focus of efforts to effectively showcase our distinctive offer to the University and wider research community.

As Project Archivist your main responsibility will be to ensure the collection is catalogued to exceptionally high standards. You will develop an appraisal and cataloguing approach for processing electron microscope images. In addition, you will create index terms and authority records, to ensure discoverability of the collection online. You will assist with the physical management of the collection and work with colleagues in our Digitisation Team to make available a selection of high quality digital images from the archive. You will also support the work of the Project Collections Assistant and Team Assistant. You will promote the Archive at research events, through blog posts and help develop an end of project exhibition and launch event to showcase the collection highlights.

Resource Discovery and Access Officer
Location: Liverpool John Moores University
Salary: £32,080 – £37,694 per annum
Contract: Full Time
Closing Date: Sunday 26 April 2026

The University Library is looking for an enthusiastic, friendly and adaptable person to join our team providing resource discovery and access support to our collections. This is a key professional post, essential to the successful delivery of strategically important services and support.

You will maintain and develop the resource discovery activity of the Library, through effective use of metadata, and ensuring that key systems such as the resource discovery system, digital content system and relevant parts of the library management system are accessible, easy to use and fit for purpose. You will support user access and authentication primarily through OpenAthens. In addition, you will engage proactively in innovation and development in relation to these systems.

You should be educated to degree level (or equivalent) and preferably hold a professional qualification in library and information management or related discipline. You should have knowledge of Dewey, MARC21, RDA and related standards and familiarity with library discovery systems.

This is currently a hybrid role with part of the working week on campus and part of the week working remotely.

Informal enquiries may be made to Maria Follett, Content and Open Research Manager at m.l.follett@ljmu.ac.uk.

In return, we offer an excellent benefits package including generous annual leave entitlement, pension scheme, induction and development support as well as family-friendly policies.

This is an exciting time to join the university as we deliver the LJMU Strategy 2030 and its vision of LJMU as an inclusive civic university transforming lives and futures, by placing students at the heart of everything we do.

Content Development Coordinator
Location: British Library (Boston Spa)
Salary: £28,152 per annum
Contract: Full Time, Permanent
Closing Date: Wednesday 13 May 2026

About the role

A permanent post in Content Development and Implementation (CDI) has arisen and we are seeking a proactive Content Management Co-Ordinator.

Are you proactive with good communication, organisational and problem-solving skills and able to work well in a team and respond constructively to feedback? If so, this could be the opportunity for you.

This is an exciting opportunity to help CDI deliver excellent content development support. Working as part of a small team you will manage processes for the cost-effective selection and review of monographs, serials and databases including the transition from print to e and reviewing new supply models. You will be used to handling data and undertaking analysis or confident that you have an aptitude to learn these skills. The wide-ranging activities undertaken in the area provide fantastic opportunities for development.

For more information, please refer to the Job Profile.

About us

We are the national library of the UK and we are here for everyone. Our shelves hold over 170 million items – a living collection that gets bigger every day. Although our roots extend back centuries, we aim to collect everything published in the UK today, tomorrow and far into the future. Our trusted experts care for this collection and open it up for everyone to spark new discoveries, ideas and to help people do incredible things.