Casual Assistant
Ref: LL/26/05
£14.80 per hour
Casual worker on “zero hours” contract
St James’s Square, London SW1
About The London Library
For over 180 years, The London Library has stood as one of the UK's greatest literary institutions, inspiring creativity, and ideas. Our esteemed members, past and present, include literary giants like Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf, and contemporary authors such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Sarah Waters. Our collection boasts around one million volumes, a vast eLibrary, and an invaluable postal loans service, making it a sanctuary for those who cherish the written word.
We are championed by our President, Helena Bonham Carter CBE, and operate as a registered charity. We have over 7,500 members and charitable turnover of circa £5m per year.
About the role
We are looking for a Casual Assistant to support the effective day-to-day operation of the Library by assisting in one or more of the following areas
- Circulation and Stack Management
Shelving and maintaining the book collection, helping members use the Library and its facilities
- Events
Supporting evening and weekend events
- Building and Facilities Management
Contributing to the safety and security of the premises
Please indicate in your application, the area you would prefer to work in.
About you
· We are looking for a reliable and proactive individual who enjoys working with people and takes pride in delivering excellent service, who can:
· Provide excellent front-line customer service to members and visitors
· Support circulation desk and reading room activity, including answering enquiries
· Shelve, retrieve, and organise books within the Library’s collection
· Assist with tours for new and prospective members
· Support evening and weekend events (set-up, ushering, guest support, bar service)
· Help maintain the safety and security of the building, including basic facilities and CCTV monitoring
· Assist with general operational tasks across the Library as required
· Assist with tours for new and prospective members
You will have:
· Experience in a customer-facing role
· Strong communication skills (in person, written and on the phone)
· Good general IT skills (e.g. Microsoft Office and ability to learn new systems)
· A flexible, team-oriented approach with a willingness to support different areas of work
· Good attention to detail and the ability to work efficiently and accurately
· Experience working in a library, cultural institution, or similar environment
· Experience supporting or delivering events
· Familiarity with library systems or stock management
Personal qualities we value:
· Friendly, polite, and approachable manner
· Reliable with good timekeeping
· Organised and methodical
· Self-motivated and adaptable
· Comfortable undertaking physical tasks (including lifting and shelving books)
Why Join Us?
The London Library offers a friendly, hardworking, and inclusive workplace where we strive to support the diverse needs of our team. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and are committed to equality and diversity. Specific adjustments and access needs can be discussed to make this role suitable for you.
If you’re passionate about delivering an exceptional Library experience and want to use your skills to help drive the success of The London Library, we would love to hear from you!
To Apply
Please visit our website & complete an application form including the Library's equal opportunities monitoring form.
Deadline: Monday 15 June 2026 @ 12:00 noon
The Library welcomes applications from all sections of the community - all applicants will be considered on the basis of their merits and abilities for the post. Please note we are unable to consider candidates without a current right to work in the UK.
We reserve the right to shorten or extend the closing date of any position where a high or low volume of suitable applications are received. Therefore, if you are interested in this role, an early application would be encouraged.
Thank you!
Overview
Afield Environmental is a brand new charity responding to environmental injustice. We do this by working with communities to rewild disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods; and bysupporting artists to undertake ecological research. This exciting and challenging role will beright at the heart of making everything happen.
We are looking for a creative and community-minded Communications and OperationsCo-ordinator to help develop Afield over the next 12 months. This is a varied roleencompassing communications and operational support for the grants programme and thecharity more generally. You will help us develop our communications strategy, support our grantees, and develop our systems and processes as a new charity.
As we are a new charity we have created this as a fixed-term appointment - we are still working out the longer-term roles for the charity.
We are looking for someone who is organised and self-sufficient, a skilled communicator, and a connector of people and ideas. We welcome applications from those early in their career. Where a candidate needs time to grow into aspects of the role, they will be helped to do so through management support and training.
Key Responsibilities
Communications
● Help deliver Afield’s communications strategy aligned with our mission
● Make Afield’s Wilding and Arts grants visible, accessible, and compelling to key
communities and audiences
● Manage Afield's digital presence across website, blogs, and social media, creating
compelling content written, visual and including graphics
● Monitor, evaluate, and report on Afield’s communications activity, to continually
improve our reach and resonance
● Help document Afield-related events through photography and video.
Support for grants programmes
● Support grantees in documenting, editing and communicating project outputs and
outcomes, including video content, for a variety of audiences
● Support the Grants and Cohorts manager as required, including setting up cohort
meetings, helping manage selection panels and providing event support, preparing
materials etc
● Provide communications skills support as appropriate to grantees / cohorts.
Other
● Provide administrative and operational support to the founders as required
● Provide support to the organisation’s broader evaluation activities
● You might occasionally be asked to support our grantee programmes in other ways
such as helping at events or workshops
Requirements
Essential
● An excellent communicator, with experience of running workshops, presenting
information to audiences, or developing relationships with partners
● Proven experience running and creating content for social media channels or websites
● Excellent writing and editing skills for different audiences, with examples of published
content (including for example social media posts)
● Empathetic, with a positive attitude and a desire to help our grantees. You should be
able to provide evidence of supporting a group of people
● Organised and energetic with a self-sufficient attitude, and with the ability to
independently manage a busy workload, multiple deadlines and priorities
● Demonstrable commitment to ongoing development and learning
● Evidence of an interest in arts and/or the environment.
Desirable:
● Strong understanding of digital content strategy, with experience of using a CMS
platform, and social media analytics
● Experience of arts-related documentation and/or archiving
● Ability and comfort in creating structure out of ambiguity
● Ability to identify challenges and opportunities, and express proposals for change
● Experience working with or supporting artists, grantees or cohorts.
● Video editing.
For more information, please see the Job Description attached.
Registered Charity
1 - 5
Afield responds to environmental injustice by rewilding disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods and supporting artists to undertake ecological research.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.