BALLIOL COLLEGE
OXFORD
Librarian
JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title:
Main purpose:
Responsible for:
Reporting to:
Department:
Salary:
Benefits:
Holidays:
Manage the general running of the Library and the Historic
Collections Centre at St Cross
Archivist
Assistant Librarian
Library Assistant
(and temporary staff as necessary)
The Fellow-Librarian and College Library Committee on all policy issues
And to the Domestic Bursar on staff and management issues
College Library / St Cross Historic Collections Centre
From £37,012 to £44,166 which is the equivalent of the
University’s grade 8.
Membership of the Oxford University Staff Pension Scheme
The Librarian is entitled to dine in the Senior Common Room at lunchtime during the week.
The appointee would be eligible for BUPA and a bus pass scheme. There is an excellent college nursery which the appointee's children might attend, subject to the availability of places
The holiday year begins on 1 August. You will receive a paid entitlement of 30 working days during the complete holiday year. 5 of these days are taken at Christmas when the College is closed.
Overview
The College Library’s extensive and rich collections are housed mainly on two sites.
The Main Library
, which includes the College’s loanable collection and workspace for its students, occupies the remaining medieval buildings in the front quadrangle on the Broad
Street site, including the original Library building which dates from 1431. The Main Library has a large collection of books (c.100,000 volumes). It seeks to cater, primarily, for the needs of undergraduate students and taught course graduate students in many subjects, though in several disciplines it also has material that scholars and researchers find useful. It houses a separate Law Library, besides office and cataloguing space for Library staff. The Main
Library is open 24/7 (closing only in the depths of vacations) and it is equipped with an automatic check-out and security system. It has wireless. The College has a generous acquisition policy and we are normally able to purchase recommended titles quickly. The

Library is a beautiful and atmospheric place to work, and it is very popular with our students: we are keen to expand the number of reading spaces (which is currently about 65).
The other Library site is the Historic Collections Centre at St Cross, next to Holywell
Manor, the College’s graduate annex, about ten minutes’ walk from the main site. The
Centre is an award-winning building that occupies the shell of St Cross Church, where we house most of the College’s special collections and the College’s archives. The special collections are very rich and constitute one of the outstanding holdings of the collegiate university. Unusually, large amounts of the College’s medieval library have come down to us
– including the oldest recorded benefaction to any Oxford library, a copy of Boethius given in
1276. Balliol cares for more than 400 early manuscripts , including, besides the key works of the medieval curriculum, highlights such as a part of the Domesday Book (1160-70), Richard
Hill’s memorandum book, the unique source of many English carols, and the library of
William Gray, Bishop of Ely, who left the College more than 200 manuscripts (and one printed book) in 1478, which has been called ‘by far the finest, as well as the largest, private collection to survive in England from the Middle Ages’. The Library has continued to grow by benefaction and bequest, and there are significant manuscript holdings in later periods, including the most important collection of Robert Browning’s poetic manuscripts, and material by and relating to Matthew Arnold and the Arnold family, Arthur Hugh Clough,
Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, as well as the papers of many
Balliol dons and students, including Jowett, T.H. Green, A.P. Stanley, Harold Nicolson, and others. Many authors are additionally represented, including Byron, Shelley, Ruskin, T.S.
Eliot, and numerous others. The College cares additionally for some 7,000 early printed books mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as a very large number of tracts, many rare or unique, mostly from the English Civil War period. A small number of incunabula are also in the collection. The Fellows subscribed to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society from the first issue. There are impressive holdings in later periods, including
Jowett’s personal library and good collections of the many major writers connected with
Balliol. The College’s archives contain well over 10,000 items, covering all aspects of the
College’s institutional history from its earliest years to the present. They represent an important resource for historians and researchers, as well as fulfilling an important function within the College as the repository for its legal documentation and for its records of past members.
The principal responsibilities of the post are:
Management of the main library: manage all aspects of the running of the Library collections and services, both at Broad Street and St Cross
Special collections: to curate and to make available to scholars and other interested readers, both from within and without the College, Balliol’s collections of early and rare printed books and manuscripts, and to oversee the running of the archives, both at the College
Library and the St Cross Historic Collections Centre.
In addition, the librarian will:
 manage Library catalogues and guides: to keep printed and online library guides up to date and available
 manage gifts and bequests
 manage the book stock

 manage the on-going cataloguing of the main and historic collections and the archives
 manage electronic resources and web pages

OLIS: to liaise with University Library Services, Committee of College Librarians and Balliol IT department on the introduction of the new Aleph Library Management system; co-ordinate staff training and organise reader training where necessary
 manage the budget for staff and resources
 manage and organise reader services
 maintain discipline in the library
 recruit, train and manage Library and Archive staff,
 oversee Health and Safety within all branches of the Library
 oversee security within all branches of the Library
 establish and review emergency planning
 attend and take minutes at the Library and Archives Committee and to liaise with the
Chair of that Committee, the Fellow Librarian, in drawing up agenda and papers
 work in collaboration with the Fellow Librarian to represent Balliol Library and the
Archives within the College and more widely
 assist the Fellow Librarian in the formulation of Library policy, including acquisitions, de-acquisitions, arrangements for readers, etc.
 work with the Fellow Librarian in the planning and execution of the Library’s programme of events, exhibitions, and publications
 work with the Fellow Librarian in the arrangement of tours of, and visits, to the
Library and St Cross and the organisation of displays for Old Members, potential benefactors, potential candidates, current students, etc.
Please send a CV with a covering letter to: Mrs Keeley Mortimer, Bursars’ Secretary, Balliol
College, Oxford, OX1 3BJ, or by email to bursars.secretary@balliol.ox.ac.uk
by 28 th March
2013.