Associate Director of Library Services

JOB DESCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION

Job Title: Associate Director of Library Services, Accountable to: Director of Libraries and Service Management Academic Support Services Salary: c£60,000 per annum Grade: Individual Contract Section/Department: Academic Development and Location: High Holborn Services / Library Services Contract Length: Permanent Hours per week/FTE: 37hpw/FT Weeks per year: 52

Purpose of Role: To lead on the strategic development, management and delivery of services in order to ensure that Library Services is aligned to the academic aspirations of the Colleges and the University and delivers a high quality and consistent student experience as well as providing best value for money services. The postholder will have specific responsibility for providing public services which support learning, teaching and research, including the Libraries within the Colleges and the Learning Zones. The postholder will also provide departmental leadership for staff development.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Work with the Library and Academic Support Leadership Team and the Library and Academic Support Strategic Monitoring Group to develop the strategic vision and direction for Library and Academic Support that takes account of the University’s priorities and current best practice within the sector.
• Oversee the development, management and delivery of a service model that is based on a set of core values and quality standards that is understood and consistently adopted by the various teams across Library Services and has the potential to be adopted by Language Centre and Academic Support teams. This needs to align with the University’s learning, teaching and research agendas as well as being consistent with the principles of excellent customer service.
• Lead the Service Management Team on developing, implementing and monitoring policies and procedures in order to ensure the consistent delivery of high quality and customer-focused services across Library Services.
• Engage with key stakeholders to embed a culture of continual service improvement based on responsiveness and to ensure that services to staff and students are developed in an agile manner as part of pro-active relationship management and academic liaison.
• Contribute to the development and lead on the management and delivery of physical facilities, including oversight of opening hours, that support the University’s pedagogic and research aspirations and is informed by the latest developments in service delivery and working practices.
• Work with the Directorate and Senior Managers on the overall management and development of Library Services staff in accordance with HR policies and procedures. This includes providing departmental leadership for staff development by chairing the Staff Development Steering Group and playing a key role in any structural and recruitment reviews.
• Work with the Directorate and Senior Managers to set, monitor and manage annual budgets within Library Services in accordance with the University’s financial regulations and procurement practices.
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of Library Services through participation in the University’s quality assurance procedures and through the application of key performance indicators and benchmarking tools in order to underpin a culture of continuous improvement. This will include responsibility for analysing, interpreting and reporting on some of the data provided by the Associate Director, Content and Discovery plus other colleagues across the Department.
• Guide and support the College Library and Learning Zone Teams, and line manage specified managers and administrative staff in accordance with relevant HR policies and procedures.
• Work closely with colleagues within University Services and the Colleges in order to facilitate the ongoing relevance and integration of Library Services within the academic and organisational development of the University.
• Participate in and influence the development of university strategy and policy by representing Library Services on relevant university committees and groups.
• Develop and maintain external contacts, representing Library Services in the wider community and at external meetings as required, including meetings with external suppliers and service providers and within relevant external user groups, to ensure that Library Services’ requirements are addressed and opportunities for shared development and delivery of services are identified.
• Participate in relevant professional networks and develop a strong professional profile.
• Deputise for the Director of Libraries and Academic Support Services in his/her absence.

Others:

• Perform such duties consistent with your role as may from time to time be assigned to you anywhere within the University.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the role.
• Work in accordance with the University’s Equal Opportunities Policy and the Staff Charter, promoting equality and diversity in your work.
• Undertake continuous personal and professional development, and to support it for any staff you manage through effective use of the University’s Planning, Review and Appraisal scheme and staff development opportunities.
• Make full use of all information and communication technologies in adherence to data protection policies to meet the requirements of the role and to promote organisational effectiveness.
• Conduct all financial matters associated with the role in accordance with the University’s policies and procedures, as laid down in the Financial Regulations.

Key Working Relationships: Managers and other staff, and external partners, suppliers etc; with whom regular contact is required.

• Senior managers within Library Services, Language Centre and Academic Support
• Library Services staff, Language Centre and Academic Support colleagues across the University
• HR colleagues, particularly the Organisational Development & Learning Team
• IT Services and Estates staff responsible for service management and delivery
• ADS colleagues, including Teaching and Learning Exchange and Academic Registry
• Students’ Union

Specific Management Responsibilities

Budgets: c£5,000,000 for Staffing / c£100,000 for Operational Costs of Libraries and Learning Zones

Staff: c92.4 FTE staff within Library Services. Line management of 6.4 FTE staff including 4 FTE Learning Resources Managers, 1 FTE Learning Zone Manager

Other (e.g. accommodation; equipment): College Libraries; Learning Zones

Signed: Director of Libraries and Academic Support Services Date of last review: December 2016

(Recruiting Manager)

Job Title: Associate Director, Service Management

Person Specification

A degree in Library and Information Management or equivalent, as relevant to the post, at Graduate or Postgraduate level

Knowledge of current developments within customer services and Specialist Knowledge/ relationship management, and awareness of how these impact on Qualifications library policy within an academic library environment

Knowledge of current developments within Higher Education, including those related to teaching, learning and research, and the student experience

Significant experience of leadership and management in academic librarianship

Experience of service development and delivery at a strategic and policy-making level

Relevant Experience

Significant experience of managing and leading people

Experience in developing and delivering staff development programmes

Communicates in a compelling and influential way adapting the style Communication Skills and message to a diverse internal or external audience in an inclusive and accessible way.

Motivates and leads effectively, setting the direction of one or more Leadership and Management function and promoting collaboration across formal boundaries

Applies innovative approaches in leading professional practice to Research, Teaching and support excellent teaching, pedagogy and inclusivity Learning

Contributes to advancing professional practice/ research or scholarly Professional Practice activity in own area of specialism

Planning and managing Effectively plans, prioritises and manages the delivery of complex resources projects or activities to achieve long term strategic objectives

Builds effective teams, networks or communities of practice and Teamwork fosters constructive cross team collaboration

Leads the improvement of the student or customer experience and Student experience or customer promotes an inclusive environment for students, colleagues or service customers

Initiates innovative solutions to problems which have a strategic Creativity, Innovation and impact Problem Solving

The application form sets out a number of competence questions related to some of the following selection criteria. Shortlisting will be based on your responses to these questions. Please make sure you provide evidence to demonstrate clearly how you meet these criteria.

Personality assessment:

All shortlisted applicants will be required to undertake the CREDO on-line personality assessment. This assessment provides us with a valuable insight into your preferred working style, temperament, interests and values. We will use your assessment to focus our interview discussion with you, in order to assess the fit between your profile and the role. At the end of the selection process each candidate will be offered the opportunity to receive a copy of the CREDO candidate development report. Staff selection decisions will never be made solely on the basis of a psychometric assessment.

Last updated: December 2016

Associate Director of Library Services, Service Management:

Background Information for Candidates

[Employer hidden — view at passion-project.co.uk] is a world-leading university for teaching and research in the fields of arts, design and communication with a particular academic ethos based on its practice-led tradition. It consists of six colleges: Central Saint Martins, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion, Camberwell College of Arts, Chelsea College of Arts and Wimbledon College of Arts. The total student population is c18,500. The University estates will change radically over the next five years with the redevelopment of its campus at Camberwell, the move of London College of Fashion to Stratford as part of a new Cultural and Educational Quarter and the relocation of London College of Communication to a new building at Elephant & Castle as part of Southwark’s regeneration programme. All these developments will include new libraries.

Library Services is located within Academic Development and Services (ADS) and is under the over-arching leadership of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic. Other departments within ADS include Student Marketing and Recruitment, Academic Registry, the University Awarding Body, FE Development and Quality Assurance, Outreach, Health Advice, Counselling, Disability Service and the Chaplaincy, the Teaching and Learning Exchange, Careers and Employability, Research Management and Administration, the Language Centre, International Relations, Corporate Governance and Legal Services.

Library Services is a University-wide department that provides high quality library, IT and reprographic services as well as academic support. Extensive academic liaison and student feedback underpin the ongoing development of its services and collections, and learning and research support and enhancement is provided in a variety of ways to help people in their use of the available resources. Library Services is represented on a wide range of committees and groups at University level and within the Colleges. As such, it is fully embedded into the University’s academic and decision-making processes.

Library Services provides six college libraries which are tailored to match local requirements. The department offers additional services: the University Archives and Special Collections Centre, which contains many unique collections including the Stanley Kubrick Archive, and two Learning Zones, which are flexible student-focused spaces where the emphasis is on social learning and activity-based work. It is also responsible for an ever-increasing collection of e-resources as well as the University’s institutional repository of research outputs, UAL Research Online, plus Library Services recently launched an innovative UAL-wide Academic Support offer that consists of Academic Support Online and a programme of workshops to enhance student learning. In 2015 the University Archives and Special Collections Centre was awarded archival accreditation by The National Archives and in 2016 Library Services was awarded Customer Service Excellence.

The Library’s multi-media collections reflect the subject specialisms of the University and constitute a major resource within the creative arts. Additionally, many of the special collections are acknowledged as being of national significance. Its stock includes c499,000 catalogued print books and c22,430 purchased serial titles (print and electronic), plus access is provided to many freely available online resources. Usage levels continue to be high (c1,365,000 visits to the libraries and c334,000 unique loans were recorded in 2015/16) and student feedback via the NSS is consistently good (89% satisfaction level recorded in 2016).

The Library Services annual operating budget for 2016/17 is c£6,400,000 for staffing and c£1,290,000 for non-staffing. The staff establishment is currently 126.05FTE consisting of library, archival, technical and academic support staff as well as administrative staff.

The Library and Academic Support Strategy 2016-2022 was endorsed by Academic Board in June 2016 and is closely aligned to the University’s Medium Term Strategy. This has been informed by feedback from a variety of sources as well as through consultations within the Department and with staff and students across the University.

A new cross-departmental governance structure has been developed to support the delivery of the Library and Academic Support Strategy. This is headed up by the Library and Academic Support Leadership Team, consisting of:

Director of Libraries and Academic Support Services

Associate Director, Service Management

Associate Director, Content and Discovery

Associate Dean, Academic Support

Director of the Language Centre and Associate Dean, International Student Experience

For further information and links to key strategic documents, policy statements and annual reports see the Library Services website: http://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/library-services/our-services/

For the University Strategy see the UAL website: http://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/strategy-governance/ual-strategy-2015-22/