Second interview library service

Does anybody have any experience of interviews for a county council library service? My sister has been called to her second interview for the post of library assistant. She's not really sure what to expect at this interview as she felt the first one was quite thorough. Even if you could shed some light on second interviews in general as I have no experience of them myself.

I would really appreciate any help. Thanks.

Does your sister have any experience of working in the library service? Interview boards normally consist of 2 county librarians and 1 member of county council staff (such as a director of services). Questions will be based on her experience either in the library service (if she has any) or any employment that she has listed on her application. She should highlight the transferability of her skills to the library service. She will be asked questions about the library service of the county in question so she should read up on their website what kind of activities they have and try and find out the budget for books etc for the year. Increases in opening hours are a big thing in libraries at the moment.

She should also read up the Library Councils website and be aware of things such as branching out which has been used to improve library services. Outside of libraries she may be asked questions about the county council - how it works, what it does, where it gets its funding, how are representatives elected etc. There may also be scenario questions such as how would you deal with a difficult customer/complaint type questions. Should also note that a library assistant might not necessarily be based in a branch and could be based in an office in library hq so prepare for questions on skills for both scenarios. Might be asked about internet as that is available in libraries these days. She needs to make sure to stick to an answer given even if the panel tries to talk her out of it (and they will) they are testing if she trusts her own judgement.

Usually one person will go through appplication, one person will ask questions on county council / library service and one will ask scenario/judgement type questions. All may then ask for further clarification somewhere along the way.

She has done well to get a 2nd interview because there is huge competition for entry level posts such as this. I wish her the best of luck.

Not too specific I know, but the main thing is to be yourself. Regarding the basics, make sure she does her homework- how many county and city libraries there are, things like th at.

There is nothing worse than being asked a general question about an organisation and not having some facts and historical knowledge of it.

Some useful information on www.library.ie and http://borrowbooks.ie

I wouldnt be mentioning borrow books. Bone of contention for many library services. E.g someone sees a book on cooking pasta dishes that isnt in their library and order it from borrow books. The library who has it has to spend money spending it when it is most likely there was another book on cooking pasta dishes in the original library just not under the title searched. Useful for items of local interest that would not be elsewhere but you can see how it can be abused.

sandrat said:

I wouldnt be mentioning borrow books. Bone of contention for many library services. E.g someone sees a book on cooking pasta dishes that isnt in their library and order it from borrow books. The library who has it has to spend money spending it when it is most likely there was another book on cooking pasta dishes in the original library just not under the title searched. Useful for items of local interest that would not be elsewhere but you can see how it can be abused.

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To be honest, this is a fairly patronising attitude. Given that it can take weeks for items ordered via borrowbooks.ie to arrive, any half-sensible user will have checked their local catalogue first. I'd have thought that most users of borrowbooks.ie know exactly what they want, and are searching for specific titles/authors, rather than general subject matters. On one occasion, I got an email from the borrowbooks guys saying that they are supplying an item from the local collection rather than inter-library loan. For your pasta example, the local library could be helping their customers and saving time and postage costs by offering comparable items available locally.

Maybe the interviewee could point out these opportunities for improving the existing service?

I'm not trying to be patronising I am telling the truth.

I've seen the pasta example happen and other similar examples with knitting and other craft type books and travel books. In these cases we do contact the local library in question and suggest they inform the borrower of the items in the local collection. The point is that requests such as this do get through. I've also seen people trying to get out of date law text books from libraries and in those cases we have actually purchased some of the (more affordable) books rather than request out of date books which would be pretty much useless. Sometimes when the books are part of the reference collection in the home library they cannot be lent out and people are not very happy that the book has to be read in the library and cannot be taken home and staff can receive a lot of abuse for this -we tend to ring the people in advance of processing these requests to inform them. I have also seen people who are not even members of the library making the requests without setting foot in the library beforehand to look at the collection. Perhaps as the service evolves and more people get used to how it works (both borrowers and library services) then it will work. I was merely warning the OP that it might be a sore point with some of the people on the interview board. I'm not sure how much consultation there was with library services before the service was set up but most libraries have a request service where they will purchase the book and add it to their own collections if only they were asked but if people go to borrowbooks first they are bypassing this long existing stage.


It would be a good thing to talk about in an interview but I would look at it from both sides that have been argued here in that when it works it is a fantastic service and a great thing for libraries but it important that it is handled right or it can be a waste of resources. Know the good sides and the bad sides because there is a likelihood you will get grilled about it if you show either opinion.

It is patronising to assume that orders are being placed in error or in ignorance. There may well be a specific reason why the particular pasta book was requested. It might have been written by the requestor's mammy, or it might have a particular recipe that can't be found elsewhere.

If there are problems with 'reference only' books being ordered, then the local catalogue and/or the borrowbooks.ie search facility should be corrected to stop these appearing. Likewise, if there is a real problem with books being unnecessarily ordered, the system could be updated to offer alternative books which are available locally.

You seem to be missing the point by suggesting that the local library could purchase the book. What's the point in purchasing to meet a single request, when it can easily be borrowed via inter-library loan?

This post relates mainly to Dublin city council library service...

If your sister was asked for recent improvements in the service, I would highlight ..

i) that after years of a a very basic website, the library service now have a reasonably decent site, where you can reserve & renew online.
ii) being able to drop off books in the steel bin is v. handy, but only a few libraries have this
iii) being able to drop off books at any library, regardless of what branch they were borrowed from, is v. handy


And also borrowbooks is a good example of Irish library co-operation. Before this (I was told by my local librarian), if an Irish library service didn't have a book, they woudl request it from the British library, and charge the customer £5. Now borrowbooks first checks if any other Irish library has it.