Vacancy Details

Full Time, Fixed Term For 1 Year

Break into the arts! If you are passionate about words and cultural events then here's a unique chance to bring your creative ideas to a wider audience, and get paid for doing it. The British Library is looking for an enthusiastic and hard working person to join its cultural events team for a year.

Based at the Library’s iconic home in St Pancras, London, you’ll be fully involved in putting together live and online talks, conversations, performances, festivals and more, while helping us develop opportunities for new and emerging voices to participate in the programme. This is a hands-on and varied role with opportunities to learn new skills, develop your knowledge and meet new people, as well as use your creative ideas and previous experience and skills in support of the position.

This job is part of a wider programme called the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries, which is designed and run by Jerwood Arts. Please see below for more details.

This programme has been designed specifically for those who may be experiencing barriers due to inequalities in UK society. We therefore encourage applications from those whose socio-economic background has potentially resulted in them having less access to opportunities in the arts. For example, this could be those who may have attended a state-funded school or college, perhaps were eligible for free school meals at secondary school, or might have had no one else in their family or previous generations attend higher education.

There are no restrictions concerning where you have worked or what you have or have not have studied.

You may or may not have had a previous job in the arts, but applicants will need to show experience of working with words, either spoken or written, unpaid or paid. Examples could include writing, blogging, lyric writing, spoken-word performance, magazines, or running word-based events, or experience of creating, producing or curating recorded content.

You may or may not have higher educational qualifications (college qualifications or University degrees).

Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries.

If you get this job you will become part of a network with 49 other artists, curators and producers from similar backgrounds called ‘Fellows’, all as part of Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries. You will all be near the beginning of your life as professional artists and creatives, starting new jobs within three months of each other. It is likely that many might have faced similar and interconnecting barriers to working in the arts previously.

Fellows will join the Professional Development programme led by people make it work, which will provide support and training and will be co-created with you.

You will get a mentor (from outside the British Library) to work with during your Fellowship. You’ll also receive guidance from Arts Emergency who have significant experience in how to identify and make the most of a mentor. Throughout the programme, you’ll also be supported by the British Library and Jerwood Arts to help you work out your next steps after the year is over.

Jerwood Arts have run this programme three times over the past decade. You can hear about other peoples’ experiences of the programme here.

For more details on all the above visit https://jerwoodarts.org/projects/weston-jerwood-creative-bursaries-2020-22/

In return we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits.  Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes 20.9%. Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays. 

More about the British Library

As one of the world’s great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation’s intellectual memory for the future and make it available to all for research, inspiration and enjoyment. At present we have well over 170 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We make our collections and programmes available to all. We operate the world’s largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future by anyone, anywhere.

In return we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits.  Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes a minimum of 20.6% (this may be higher dependant on grade. Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.

Please complete the Socio-Economic Diversity and Inclusion Form associated vacancy documents and return to BL-Recruitment@bl.uk once you have submitted your application.

Closing date: 19 March 2021

Interview date: TBC

Disability Confident

We are a Disability Confident employer, and make a commitment to recruit and support disabled people. We guarantee an interview for disabled candidates who meet the minimum (essential) requirements for a vacancy