The opportunity

Birmingham City University offers quality, student-focused education in a professional and friendly environment. Our superb courses, multi-million pounds’ investment in state-of-the-art facilities, first-rate staff, and with a focus on practical skills and professional relevance is producing some of the country’s most employable graduates. Coupled with our growing reputation for applied research, the University has a proud reputation as the University for Birmingham.

Our campus environments are distributed around the vibrant city centre and include the central campus at Curzon Street, the modern Seacole health and education campus, the arts and design site at Margaret Street, the award-winning School of Jewellery, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Following a strategic alignment of the Library and Learning Resources department the University wishes to appoint an experienced strategic leader to lead, manage and develop this important area, with an emphasis on digital transformation. Reporting to the Pro Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching, the post holder will play a key role in the University’s corporate management team, bringing vision, creativity and experience to ensure that library services are fully aligned with the mission, values and strategic objectives of the University.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with members of the University Executive Group (UEG) and University Management Group (UMG) to deliver the Mission, Vision and Values of BCU
• Direct strategic and financial planning with the context of innovation in Library development and digital transformation
• Devise plans to demonstrate the impact of the Library service and then monitor performance indicators linked to these benchmarks
• Foster and promote student and staff engagement in service planning, measurement and delivery
• Provide effective leadership and strategic and operational management of staff and all functions and activities within the Service, ensuring timely delivery of the Service strategic plan.
• Chair, contribute to and participate in University corporate decision-making and policy-making processes through membership of University committees and projects
• Oversee and manage the Service records management and archiving function in compliance with the University’s Records Management, Data Protection and Freedom of Information policies and procedures.

Person Specification

• Substantial experience at a senior level of leading and managing contemporary library services in higher education is required
• Qualified librarian and educated to Masters level or above
• In depth knowledge of the HE and HE library environments
• Proven strengths in strategic planning and change management
• Should be able to evidence success in delivering complex and stretching objectives within a multi-campus, partnership and international context
• Extensive experience of staff management, coaching and development
• Utilises technology and has current digital capabilities
• Experience of leading in supporting learning, teaching and research activities, and in customer services

Our staff and student community is defined by our core values, which outline who we are as a University and how we will work with each other. Our core values are Excellence, People focused, Partnership working and Fairness and integrity.

The Candidate Brief can be viewed in the key documents section and for a confidential discussion please contact Andrew Timlin on 07887777735

All direct and 3rd party applications will be forwarded to our retained advisors, Hays Executive.

RECRUITMENT TIMETABLE

KEY DOCUMENTS

Job description