Staff Development Weekly Update

ALN Staff Development Update #120 – 11 November 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

Thanks to everyone who has stepped up to present on the 2026-2027 programme so far – we really appreciate it! We’ll be adding to this list gradually over the year so please keep coming back to check for new content.

November 2026

Reading Lists: keeping them relevant and making the most of library collections and beyond…
Hosted online by LJMU
Date: Wednesday 18 November 2026
Time: 12.00 – 12.45

Research funding for librarians: reflections on the Research Catalyst programme 2025-26
Hosted online by Sunderland
Date: Monday 30 November 2026
Time: 10.00 – 11.30

December 2026

** New Series** Career Conversations…with Alex Wheeler (Manchester Met)
Hosted online by ALN
Date: Thursday 3 December 2026
Time: 10.00 – 10.45

**New** North East TeachMeet
Hosted in-person at Newcastle University
Date: Monday 7 December 2026
Time: 1.00 – 4.00

January 2027

**New** The library’s role in civic engagement
Hosted online by EDI Action Group
Date: Thursday 21 January 2027
Time: 2.00 – 3.30

February 2027

** New ** Career Conversations…with Phil Cheeseman (Lancaster)
Hosted online by ALN
Date: Wednesday 3 February 2027
Time: 1.00 – 1.45

Celebrating individual and institutional successes

We would love to create a space in our updates to help to celebrate the successes of individuals within our member libraries and those of the library services in general. Does your institution have something to share? Any project wins or individual achievements that you would like to share with your colleagues in other ALN institutions, both big or small? Please get in touch with us so we can start to share and celebrate together – academiclibrariesnorth@sconul.ac.uk. We can’t wait to hear from you!

New – ALN ITIL Training Survey

New – ALN Calendar

This calendar provides an easy overview of ALN activities from our events, meetings and conferences and hopefully provides a snapshot of when, how often and what we are offering. For entries which start ALN, this indicates a Special Interest Group or Community of Practice meeting. We have many groups that operate within ALN. In order to attend these meetings you need to be a member of the group. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in joining any of them. We have also included other ALN meetings such as the Board, Steering Group, Staff Development Group and Conference Committee. Again these are closed groups for members only. ALN Events and Frontline Forums are also available with relevant links for booking for ALN members. You can also see a snapshot of all the meetings which took place in academic year 2025-26 here.

Frontline Forum 2026/27

The Frontline Forum organising team has been busy planning dates for the 2026/27 academic year!

The first Frontline Forum will take place on:

Monday 16 November 2026 – 10.00 – 11.30 – Topic: engaging students at the start of term

Take a look on our Frontline Forum webpage for more information and our past Frontline Forums here.

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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.

Mentoring

We were delighted to award 13 sponsored places for this years conference. Their reflections and thoughts have been brought together and supplement the recordings below. We love all of the submissions from cartoons, drawings, photos and text.

As a reminder, the theme of our conference was ‘Reimagining Openness in Academic Libraries’ and looked at what “open” really means in academic libraries today. We had such a broad range of speakers, workshops and keynotes that helped make both days of interest to colleagues working across all library services. Resources from both days are available on the ALN website. We have now completed the checking and editing of recordings to ensure they are all accessible and they are now available on our Conference 2026 playlist on YouTube.

Save the Date for 2027!
For our 2027 conference, the online day (via Teams) will be Wednesday 23 June and the in-person day will be taking place on Tuesday 13 July 2027 at the Creative Centre at York St John University.

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

ALN Skill Up Series

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 2026/27 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?

ALN Annual Review 2025

Free External Self Directed Opportunities

There are many different places to find a range of freely available materials.

After consulting with members of our Staff Development Group we have begun to pull these together in one document which helps to highlight resources that other information professionals have found useful or have recommended to others to use.

If you’d like to give us feedback on any resources you’ve used, want to suggest your own or report any broken links, we’d appreciate your thoughts via this webform.

EDI Innovation Fund Projects

In May 2025, we funded 4 projects, two of which have shared their findings – see below – and one project team contributed to the in-person day of the ALN Conference 2026:

• Calm Spaces. Aim: To evaluate and develop calm spaces at the University of Huddersfield and Sheffield Hallam University. It is hoped that the results of the project will have a positive impact on student wellbeing. (Huddersfield and Sheffield Hallam)
  Outputs: Calm Spaces Project Case Studies
• Accessible Library Induction Guides. Aim: To investigate offering basic library services guides in different formats: print, large print, audio, video, and online to make library guidance more accessible to students. The project teams will work with students in the creation of the guides and students will review the content of library induction sessions and create a list of “library essential facts”. (Chester)
  Outputs: Best practice in accessible library guides and Dos and don’ts accessibility checklist and Print accessibility checklist
• Inclusive Academic Reading Project. Aim: To investigate the habits, preferences, and motives of undergraduate and postgraduate students regarding university reading lists and academic reading preferences; and to develop an evidence base to enhance retention, progression, and completion rates, with a particular focus on students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. (Manchester Met and Sheffield Hallam) You can see the presentation from Manchester Met and Sheffield Hallam colleagues at the ALN 2026 conference at this link (see 2b)

• Reducing barriers and supporting people seeking sanctuary in realising their academic potential. Aim: To evaluate, expand and evolve the University of Hull’s Sanctuary Associate Membership scheme, utilising UX research methods, for example, customer journey mapping, card sorting, creating user personas and user benchmarking to evaluate the use of our current provision and identify user challenges. (Hull) 

Outputs for the remaining project will be shared as soon as they are available.

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.

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.

These are the groups with current vacancies:

• Academic Skills CoP – 2 vacancies
• ILLs – 1 vacancy
• Technology – 1 vacancy

Call for SCONUL Contributions/Involvement

External Events and Opportunities

Dissertation Student Survey on academic librarians’ awareness of and/or involvement with OERs
Deadline for responses: Monday 23 November 2026 (23:59)
Are you a librarian, or hold an equivalent library or information role, at a UK higher education institution? I would be very grateful if you could spare 10-15 minutes to complete a short survey for my MA Information and Library Studies dissertation. My study explores academic librarians’ awareness of, and involvement with, Open Educational Resources (OER) in UK higher education. All perspectives are welcome, including from those who are not currently aware of or involved with OER. The survey is open to academic librarians (or those in an equivalent library or information role) in the UK. Participation is voluntary and responses are anonymous. At the end, you will be invited to volunteer for an optional follow-up interview via a separate form. The study has received ethical approval from Aberystwyth University (Reference: 33492Ha). If you have any questions, please contact Amy Austin at aja21@aber.ac.uk.

Terry Eagleton Archive Launch event and talk
The University of Salford Library is delighted to launch The Terry Eagleton Archive, a major new collection from the Salford-born literary scholar and cultural theorist, entrusted to the The University of Salford for long-term preservation and research.

Spanning the early 1960s to 2026, it includes previously unseen manuscripts of plays and poetry, cassette tapes, photographs, handwritten notes, and an almost complete run of Slant, the radical Catholic journal Terry edited from 1964 to 1969. It’s one of the largest collections the university has taken on in recent years, and a is a fantastic resource for researchers and literary critics worldwide.

Join the event and talk – Places are limited, so register your interest today!
Wednesday 25 November, 5–7pm
Launch event at the Clifford Whitworth Library, Peel Park campus. We are delighted that Professor Eagleton will give a talk on the web of artistic connections that shaped 20th-century Salford, followed by audience Q&A.

Read the full story here.

SCONUL AI coffee morning
Date: Friday 27 November 2026
SCONUL’s next AI coffee morning will take place on Friday 27 November at 10am where the conversation will be around AI and cataloguing. We will hear from Hannes Lowagie, Head of Bibliographic Information Agency at the Royal Library of Belgium. Hannes oversees cataloguing processes and ensures metadata quality and his current focus is on integrating AI into cataloguing workflows and applying RDA and international cataloguing standards. The coffee mornings bring together those with an interest in AI developments within libraries on the last Friday of every month.

CILIP NE event – Holistic, tailored, and meaningful: Reimagining skills development
Date: Wednesday 2 December 2026
Join us to hear how information professionals across the sector have created, and are successfully providing, effective study skills support that is tailored, holistic, and meaningful to those attending them. Speakers will share how they support students using approaches such as referencing masterclasses, teaching media literacy, discovering grey literature, and improving digital skills. They will report on what has worked, what were the biggest challenges, and what they learned while passing on some tips that we think you’ll find extremely useful. Our speakers are as follows and abstracts are available on the event page:

AI and Information Literacy CIG: User insights and evaluations on AI and digital skills
Date: Wednesday 9 December 2026
Join the next meeting of SCONUL’s AI and Information Literacy Community of Interest Group where we will be discussing user insights and evaluations on AI tools and skills and will hear from speakers that have been capturing student and staff user voices and experiences, their reflections and the impact this is having on their approaches to AI in their own contexts. If you have examples of user insights, methods used to capture insights or examples of how you have used insights to influence your approaches to AI and Information Literacies, please contact Anna Richards, Callum Perry or Ella Mitchell, who can support you to share your experiences at this session.

Library Attendant
Location: Newcastle University
Salary: £27,241 per annum, pro rata
Contract Type: Part Time/Open Ended
Closing Date: Thursday 12 November 2026

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

The Role

This is a place-based role in a busy vibrant campus, Library Attendants are essential to the running of the University libraries, working either during core Library service hours or during evening, overnight and weekend opening hours. You will provide excellent customer service and ensure that the library is opened safely and securely during periods of limited staffing. You may be required to work at any of the Library sites, and duties will vary in emphasis depending on the shifts that are worked.

Previous experience of working in a customer focused service environment is essential. You will possess good interpersonal and customer care skills and the ability to work accurately and with attention to detail.

Mobility and physical fitness consistent with the need to push trolleys, carry parcels and move equipment is essential. You will also be required to undertake mandatory health and safety training relevant to the role. Library attendants can expect to walk long distances between sites, up and down stairs, and around large buildings during shifts. Attendants are also expected to assist in emergency evacuations.

There are four vacancies all of which will require some bank holiday working and working extended hours until Midnight during exams. Please specify when applying which of the posts you would like to be considered for. The details are:

Post 1 – Sunday to Wednesday 4 pm to 10 pm

Post 2 – Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday 4 pm to 10 pm; Friday and Saturday evenings will not be required during summer vacation

Post 3 – Thursday to Saturday, 4 pm to 10 pm; Saturday evenings will not be required during summer vacation

Post 4 – Friday to Sunday 4 pm to 10 pm; Saturday evenings will not be required during summer vacation.

Learning Developer (LUMS Postgraduate)
Location: Lancaster University
Salary: £39,906 to £46,04
Contract: Fixed Term, Full Time (1 FTE Maternity Cover until 15th November 2027)
Closing Date: Saturday 14 November 2026
Interview Date: Monday 30 November 2026

We are seeking to appoint a Learning Developer to join our well-established team at Lancaster University. You will be responsible for learning development for postgraduate students in Lancaster University Management School (LUMS). You will be a member of a team managed from the Library, most of whom have faculty-specific roles. The main part of the role will involve collaborating with faculty staff in the bespoke teaching of academic skills. You will also offer in-person and online one-to-one appointments and workshops. You will contribute to the creation of interactive online learning development resources as well as managing the Academic Writing Zone, a writing mentoring scheme to support all LUMS students.

We are looking for someone with a Masters level qualification, experience of teaching academic skills in higher education and a teaching qualification. You will have knowledge of the writing challenges experienced by postgraduate students and be able to respond flexibly to evolving student needs. You will have a strong evidence of working in a collegiate and supportive way with colleagues and students from a diverse range of educational and cultural backgrounds. You will have recent experience of teaching online using Microsoft Teams and other relevant digital tools.

Cataloguing Project Manager
Location: University of Hull
Band/Salary: Band 6 (UO24 to UO30)/£33,002 – £38,784 per annum
Contract Type: Full Time/Fixed Term for 6 months
Closing Date: Monday 16 November 2026

This position will work at University sites across Hull, primarily Blaydes House in the historic Old Town and the Cottingham Road campus.

The Cataloguing Project Manager is a new full-time, fixed-term post available for six months through funding from the Maritime History Trust. The postholder will be part of the Library’s Collections Development Team, reporting to the Collections Development Manager. You will work with Library and Archive colleagues as required, and liaise with staff in the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Education, which has oversight of Blaydes House, particularly colleagues working at Blaydes House.

Blaydes House was built for the Blaydes family in the 18th century as a hub to manage the family’s merchant and shipbuilding businesses. More recently, it has been the home of the University of Hull’s Blaydes Maritime Centre and its substantial library and archive collections. The University is relocating these collections, which will continue to support research and teaching either at Hull or elsewhere. To enable this, the collections need to be fully catalogued to professional standards so that the transfer of physical items is accompanied by the export/import of catalogue records to the library management systems of the new locations.

You will have a recognised qualification in library and information management and/or experience relevant to the post. Your experience will include:

working with library management systems, particularly the cataloguing functions. Experience of Sierra is desirable, not essential.
current metadata standards, MARC, RDA, AACR2, and Library of Congress schedules.
project management, for which you will be able to demonstrate the outcomes from previous work.

You will be actively engaged in continuing professional development.

The role will primarily be located at Blaydes House to work in situ with the collections, with work also at the University Library and Hull History Centre as necessary. As part of that, there will also be opportunities to work with colleagues in the Collections Development Team more broadly in support of wider Library metadata activity (library collections, research outputs, digital collections).

Curator of Methodist + Non-conformist Collections
Location: University of Manchester
Salary: £38,448 – £46,970
Contract Type: Full Time/Fixed Term
Closing Date: Monday 16 November 2026

We are seeking a motivated and collaborative individual to join our team as Curator – Methodist and Non-conformist Collections. This curatorial role is responsible for the stewardship of the Methodist and Non-conformist archival and printed collections held at the University of Manchester Library, primarily based at the John Rylands Library.

You will be responsible for:

• To curate agreed Special Collections materials, print and digital, to exemplary standards, contributing to the development, management, care and security of the collections in line with Library policies and procedures.
• To promote and actively deliver the teaching and learning agenda for Special Collections in collaboration with other colleagues across the library and to support all curators in teaching and learning activities.
• To take a strategic approach to improving access to the collections, through cataloguing, digitisation, specialist enquiries and the reader service, liaising as appropriate with Library colleagues and academic staff.
• To liaise with stakeholders, including existing and potential donors, creators and depositors, over the acquisition, development and use of Special Collections materials, in line with Library policies.
• To contribute to the development and delivery of public engagement programmes, including curating exhibitions and displays, and to promote Special Collections materials and activities through tours, talks, publications and social media activities.
• We welcome candidates who bring diverse perspectives, experiences, and approaches to their work.

About You

We encourage applications from individuals with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. You should demonstrate:

Essential Criteria

• Knowledge of curatorial practices for rare books and archive collections.
• 3 years professional experience of curating Special Collections in a relevant environment.
• Excellent interpersonal and teamworking skills to work in a highly collegiate environment.
• Educated to degree level in a subject represented in the Special Collections of the University of Manchester Library.
• Full professional qualification in librarianship, archive management or museum studies, and/or relevant experience at a comparable level.

Desirable Criteria

• Awareness of Methodist and Non-conformist history in the UK.
• Knowledge of one or more metadata standards appropriate to Special Collections.
• We value transferable skills and real-world experience as much as formal qualifications.

Liaison Librarian
Location: Teesside University
Salary: £31,861 – £36,320
Contract Type: Full Time/Permanent
Closing Date: Tuesday 17 November 2026
Interview Date: Tuesday 8 December 2026

Student and Library Services are pleased to offer a superb opportunity to join our student facing Learning, Teaching and Research team in this Liaison Librarian role. This role is a full time and permanent opportunity for someone with excellent customer care skills and experience and who wants to make a difference in a higher education setting.

We are looking for someone who is flexible and can easily adapt within an environment that is lively and responsive to evolving student needs, someone who is keen to explore and harness digital opportunities available that will help to improve our student experience and someone who is passionate about the support we offer to our University community.

This role involves supporting students to develop critical digital and library literacies and creating effective learning materials to facilitate this.

This role involves working one evening per week until 7pm and one morning from 8am as part of your weekly hours.

If you would like to have an informal chat about this role after looking at the Job Description and Person Specification requirements, please contact us via email to set up an appointment to P.A.SLS@tees.ac.uk.

Please note that the University may ask you to participate in a number of selection activities as part of the recruitment process for this vacancy.

If you are shortlisted, your interview will take place in person, on campus.

Experience and Engagement Supervisor
Location: Teesside University
Salary: £26,238 – £26,615 pro rata
Contract Type: Part Time (Mon-Weds 18.5 hours)/Permanent
Closing Date: Wednesday 18 November 2026
Interview Date: Thursday 10 December 2026

The University is pleased to offer a part time, permanent position based in its Student and Library Services department. This is a critical student facing position requiring excellent customer care skills and will require the successful applicant to be highly organised and able to work across a range of digital platforms as part of the role.

This role involves supporting our culturally diverse student community along with staff and visitors and working as part of a busy, creative and dynamic team, working across our key student facing buildings and working with a range of different University support services.

If you have the skills and experience we are looking for, please contact us via email to p.a.sls@tees.ac.uk for an informal chat.

This role will involve working one evening per week until 7pm and one early start per week from 8am.  Flexi time is available and there may be opportunity for some limited hybrid working depending on business need.

Please note that the University may ask you to participate in a number of selection activities as part of the recruitment process for this vacancy.

If you are shortlisted, your interview will take place in person, on campus. Interviews will take place on 10 December 2026.

Experience and Engagement Assistant 
Location: Teesside University
Salary: £26,065 – £26,180 pro rata
Contract Type: Part Time (Mon-Weds 18.5 hours)/Permanent
Closing Date: Thursday 19 November 2026
Interview Date: Monday 7 December 2026

Student and Library Services are pleased to offer a superb opportunity to join our student facing Learning, Teaching and Research team in this assistant role. This role is a part time and permanent opportunity for someone with excellent customer care skills and experience and who wants to make a difference in a higher education setting.

We are looking for someone who is flexible and can easily adapt within an environment that is lively and responsive to evolving student needs, someone who is keen to explore digital opportunities available that will help to improve our student experience and someone who is passionate about the support we offer to our University community.

This role involves working one evening per week until 7pm as part of your weekly hours and one 8am start per week.

If you would like to have an informal chat about this role after looking at the Job Description and Person Specification requirements, please contact us via email to set up an appointment to P.A.SLS@tees.ac.uk.

Please note that the University may ask you to participate in a number of selection activities as part of the recruitment process for this vacancy.

If you are shortlisted, your interview will take place in person, on campus.

Customer Services Co-ordinator
Location: Durham University
Grade/Salary: Grade 5/£27,865 – £30,986 per annum
Contract: Open-Ended/Permanent, Full Time
Closing Date: Monday 23 November 2026

The Role and the Department 

The Customer Services Team is part of University Library and Collections (ULC). We provide front-line (face to face and virtual) customer, visitor and enquiry services across our department. This includes visitor services at our museums and visitor attractions: Palace Green Library, Oriental Museum and Durham Castle, as well as user services in our Libraries and study spaces, 7 days a week, including 24/7 term-time opening during our busiest periods.

Customer Services Co-ordinators are essential to the development and provision of specialist library services to students and academics. They co-ordinate the day-to-day operations of the library and have specialist areas of responsibility which include a highly responsive enquiry service, social media, user experience, digitisation (making resources available to support reading lists, teaching and research activity), disability support, online support, circulation operations (ensuring physical items are available for loan, responding to resource requests, supporting learning and research activity), as well as being involved in wider service delivery. While working on site in the role as duty co-ordinator, they take responsibility for any escalated issues, decision making, process reviews, etc. triaging, trouble shooting and problem-solving issues as they arise, especially in evenings and at weekends

Customer Services Co-ordinators have responsibility for line-management, work allocation, training and oversight of colleagues within the wider Customer Services team (Customer Services Assistants, Information Assistants and Library Assistants), and associated services, delivered across multiple sites.

The Customer Services Co-ordinator team work Monday to Sunday, working early morning, day and evening shifts as part of a standard rota, typically covering between 7.45am and 8pm, including bank holidays. As our services are delivered across multiple sites, there is an expectation that the successful candidate will be available to work at any University Library and Collections site as service demands.

The planned shift pattern for this role includes evening and weekend shifts every week.

Digital Collections Development and Outreach Manager
Location: University of Manchester
Grade/Salary: Grade 6/£38,448 – £46,970 pro rata
Contract: Permanent, Part Time (31.5 hours per week)
Closing Date: Monday 23 November 2026

We are seeking a motivated and collaborative individual to join our team as a Digital Collections Development and Outreach Manager. You will lead the development, delivery and outreach of digital collections available on Manchester Digital Collections and Library Digital Collections, supporting their use in teaching, enhancing research visibility and developing civic engagement opportunities.

You will be responsible for:

• Leading the planning and delivery of digital outreach activities to increase engagement of the Library’s digital collections in collaboration with the Exhibition and Public Engagement with Research team, Curatorial team, Engagement team, cultural institutions and research platforms e.g. Creative Manchester and Digital Futures.
• Managing the successful integration of new collections into Library digital platforms (Manchester Digital Collections and Library Digital Collections), prioritising, planning and coordinating operational work, including conservation treatment, imaging, metadata creation and conversion, development requirements and the ingest of researcher-generated content such as transcriptions and translated text.
• Reviewing and improving workflows for the creation and ingest of image files, transcriptions, metadata and other content.
• Managing and developing staff within a team, supporting performance, wellbeing and professional development.

We welcome candidates who bring diverse perspectives, experiences, and approaches to their work.

About You

We encourage applications from individuals with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. You should demonstrate:

Essential Criteria:

• Knowledge of metadata standards and best practice in an academic library, archive, museum or related cultural heritage environment.
• Experience of managing complex projects to tight deadlines within higher education, cultural heritage or a related environment.
• Experience planning and delivering engagement activities.
• Experience of managing copyright and licensing requirements in relation to digital content.
• Ability to work confidently across curatorial, metadata, and technical domains, translating requirements and communicating effectively with both specialist and technical teams to support the development of digital collections and outreach services.

Desirable Criteria:

• Ability to use initiative and judgement, work independently and contribute effectively as part of a team.
• Ability to manage change positively and support continuous improvement in workflows and services.

We value transferable skills and real-world experience as much as formal qualifications.

Pure Administrator
Location: University of Huddersfield
Grade/Salary: Grade 5/£28,111 – £32,142 per annum
Contract: Permanent, Full Time
Closing Date: Tuesday 24 November 2026

We have an exciting opportunity for a Pure Administrator to join the University of Huddersfield’s Research and Innovation service.

The post holder will help to ensure that the University’s research outputs and activities are recorded accurately and showcased effectively in Pure and will provide administrative support for related research systems and services.

You will work within Pure, which is the University’s Research Information System and Open Access repository. By enriching, cleansing, and quality-checking records in the system, you will play a key role in maintaining the completeness and accuracy of its data. The role involves liaising with academic staff and acting as the first point of contact for queries related to Pure and associated research workflows.

You will support the team with other research support activities relating to outputs, open access, research data management, and other aspects of the research lifecycle, including assistance with the preparation of research output data for submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

With a level 3 qualification (e.g. A Levels, BTEC, NVQ Level 3) or relevant working experience and GCSEs in English and Maths at Grade C/4 or above, you will bring strong IT skills, including proficiency in Microsoft Office packages, and experience using inter-relational database systems, including Research Information Management Systems.

You will also have prior experience working in research administration at a Higher Education institution and have knowledge of the research lifecycle. Having worked in a busy office setting, you will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to work methodically to meet deadlines and targets.

We offer an excellent employment package including hybrid working, blending a mix of remote and on-campus working (dependent on work duties).

Weekend Customer Service Supervisor
Location: University of Salford
Salary: £30,986 – £33,662
Contract: Fixed Term (6 months), Part Time
Closing Date: Sunday 29 November 2026

The Weekend Customer Service Supervisor will be responsible for supporting the Weekend team in the day-to-day operations of Library Services in the Clifford Whitworth Library during weekends. This includes acting as an escalation point for the team, liaising with Security colleagues when needed, ensuring the delivery of excellent customer service and working collaboratively towards the continual improvement of Library Services. The role requires someone who can work well as part of a team, stay calm and resilient under pressure, and respond confidently to challenging situations. They will need strong organisational and interpersonal skills, a flexible approach, and the ability to support colleagues in delivering consistent, high-quality customer service.

Due to the nature of this role the post holder will required to work on campus. This is a part-time role of 21 hours per week and covers Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The standard hours are 11am – 7pm, however flexibility will be required to cover between 8am – 9pm when there are absences to maintain service.

Please note this advert may close early if we receive a high volume of applications

Key Responsibilities

• Provide a consistently high level of customer service and support the Library Services Weekend Team in delivering agreed service standards, query response times and a welcoming experience for students and colleagues.
• Act as a point of escalation for behaviour-related or challenging situations, responding calmly and professionally, de-escalating where appropriate and liaising with Security colleagues and Customer Service Team Leaders when follow up is required.
• Coordinate day-to-day weekend tasks and priorities, including delegating activity, supporting colleagues to manage workload and identifying any barriers to effective service delivery.

Project Archivist (Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust Archive)
Location: University of York
Grade/Salary: Grade 6/£38,448 – £46,970 per year
Contract: Fixed Term, Full Time
Closing Date: Sunday 29 November 2026

The Borthwick Institute for Archives was founded in 1953, and became part of the University of York at its inception in 1963. Today, the Borthwick Institute holds over 780 archive collections, amounting to just over 950 cubic metres of archives.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) agreed to deposit their archive at the Borthwick Institute for Archives in 2006. There were later accessions of materials in 2013 and 2018. Now, following a review of materials held at their offices in York, JRCT are seeking to transfer a further 300 boxes of archives to the Borthwick Institute. The content of this part of the collection is primarily, but not exclusively, 20th century grant files relating to organisations and projects funded by the JRCT.

This post will work with JRCT to facilitate the cataloguing and repackaging of the transferred boxes, and work to ingest the archives catalogue into our cataloguing system, AtoM.

The post-holder will be based in Archives and Research Collections (Borthwick Institute for Archives), at the University of York. The post-holder will work closely with a team of other archivists and will liaise with and report to a Project Board comprising Borthwick archivists and members of the JRCT.

Role

The postholder will:

• Create new arrangements and descriptions for uncatalogued collections.
• Create relevant authority records for significant individuals, families, places, and corporate bodies found in the material being catalogued, following national and international standards such as the NCA Rules and ISAAR(CPF).
• In conjunction with colleagues, prioritise metadata creation to ensure maximum exposure and impact.
• Undertake research as necessary in primary and secondary sources to support descriptive cataloguing and authority record creation.
• Identify areas of the collection where Data Protection legislation applies and, in consultation with colleagues, put appropriate administrative measures in place.
• Structure and import existing catalogue data to AtoM and disseminate to UK and European catalogue data aggregators.
• Update the user community and colleagues re: progress and discoveries.

For informal enquiries: please contact Laura Yeoman (laura.yeoman@york.ac.uk).

Project Archivist (Patrick Duncan Archive)
Location: University of York
Grade/Salary: Grade 6/£38,448 – £46,970 per year
Contract: Fixed Term, Full Time
Closing Date: Sunday 29 November 2026

The Borthwick Institute for Archives was founded in 1953, and became part of the University of York at its inception in 1963. Today, the Borthwick Institute holds over 780 archive collections, amounting to just over 950 cubic metres of archives.

The Patrick Duncan Archive documents the life, career, networks and activism of Patrick Baker Duncan (1918-1967), a significant figure in the struggle against apartheid. It covers Duncan’s transition from a colonial official to committed activist, journalist and author, and his sustained work for racial equality, democracy and environmental justice.

‘People, Power, Planet: The Patrick Duncan Archive’ project will make this rich collection fully accessible for the first time through a detailed archive catalogue, improved descriptions, digitised items, a supporting microsite and digital storytelling. These resources and outreach activities will support new research and engagement for schools, universities, and community or diasporic groups interested in human rights, Southern African history, journalism, and political and environmental activism.

This cataloguing and outreach project archivist post, funded through an Archives Revealed grant, will work with community partners, stakeholders and volunteers to facilitate the cataloguing, selected digitisation and transcription, repackaging and interpretation of this globally significant archive, and will undertake the import of the catalogue descriptions into our cataloguing system, AtoM. The Archives Revealed programme is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives.

The post-holder will be based in Archives and Research Collections (Borthwick Institute for Archives), at the University of York. The post-holder will work closely with a team of other archivists and will liaise with and report to a Project Board comprising Borthwick archivists, and collection managers, academics and stakeholders from within and outside the UK.

Role

• Create arrangements, descriptions, and authority records (NCA Rules, ISAAR(CPF)) for uncatalogued material, ensuring inclusive practices for culturally sensitive content.
• Undertake research to support descriptive cataloguing, authority records, and outreach resources.
• Structure and import catalogue data into AtoM and disseminate to UK/European aggregators.
• Identify Data Protection implications and implement appropriate administrative measures.
• Report progress to the Project Board, colleagues, and user communities.

For informal enquiries: please contact Dr Charles Fonge (charles.fonge@york.ac.uk) or Laura Yeoman (laura.yeoman@york.ac.uk).