Graduate Trainee Library Assistant - Institute of Classical Studies

The University of London

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About the Department

The Institute of Classical Studies Library is seeking to appoint a Graduate Library Trainee for the academic year 2025-2026 (August – August). The post is a one-year fixed term training post designed for graduates carrying out a year of work experience and training prior to attending library school.

The Institute of Classical Studies was founded as a post-graduate Institute of the University of London in 1953, and now forms part of the School of Advanced Study; its Library is housed and administered as a single unit with the Joint Library of the Hellenic and Roman Societies (established in 1879 and 1910 respectively).

The Library and Role

Since 1997, the Library has been located in the University’s Senate House. The Institute library is responsible for the “primary” collection of reference material, including dictionaries, corpora, excavation reports, standard texts of ancient authors, and certain periodicals, together with specialist electronic resources; the library of the Societies for the “secondary” collection of loanable books and periodicals. The Library’s integrated collection now holds over 130,000 monographs and 22,000 bound periodicals, with c.700 current periodical titles, the whole thereby forming an interdisciplinary tool serving all aspects of classical research. For further information, please refer to the Library’s website at: https://library.ics.sas.ac.uk/

The SCONUL Trainee post is now an endowment as the Winnington-Ingram Trainee post, as a result of a fund set up in memory of Professor R.P. Winnington-Ingram, classical scholar and former Director of the Institute.  The Library is not sufficiently large to be organised in departments, but each member of staff has at least one special responsibility, and the Trainee has an opportunity to take a turn at or view most aspects of library work during the year.  The Library Assistant, Assistant Librarian and Trainee work under the supervision of the Senior Assistant Librarian, and share several duties: please download the job description below to view duties. 

In addition, the Winnington-Ingram Trainee will receive a training programme for the year which covers other aspects of library work such as cataloguing, book selection, periodicals management, use of electronic resources etc.; and visits to other libraries, both internally and externally, will be arranged at regular intervals.  

For a full role profile, please refer to the job description below.

Further Information

To be considered for this opportunity, please submit your Application (by clicking ‘apply for job’ at the bottom of this page) before the closing date at midnight, 31st January 2025. 

The University will be unable to sponsor candidates for a visa for this role. Successful applicants must be able to demonstrate their right to work in the UK for the duration of their employment.

The University of London is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive working environment where we can all be ourselves and succeed. We particularly encourage applications from members of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities as this group is currently under-represented at all levels within the University. All appointments will be made on merit, based on the criteria identified in the job description. 

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