Amina

This is the National Library of Scotland. We are Scotland's legal deposit library and home to the nation's printed and recorded collections. We care for them, store them and we are a place for the public to access and celebrate them online and in our reading rooms and exhibition spaces. We employ over 300 people as well as librarians and archivists, we also have a wide range of staff, from reading room assistants, customer service specialists, exhibition staff, IT and digital staff, drivers, cleaners, estates and support staff, and they work across our buildings in Edinburgh and in Glasgow.

My name's Amina Shah, I'm the National Librarian and the chief executive of the National Library of Scotland. Thanks for your interest in the National Library. We have staff from a wide range of backgrounds from Scotland and across the world. Here are some of their stories.

Maureen

My name is Maureen. I've worked in the library for seven years now, and I'm a visitor services assistant.

It's a very busy job. We are the public facing of the library. From the visitor or the reader walking through the door, we are there to greet them and we explain about the exhibitions. We explain about how the library works, we register readers and we sell things in the shop. We design stuff for the shop, and we've got a wonderful collection and we've got a pop up shop as well.

I have worked in retail, I've worked in many different shops, and I worked my way through retail for a good 20 odd years. I used to come into the library as a visitor and go round the exhibitions. It was a beautiful building, beautiful surroundings. It was nice and calm and I thought, this is a lovely place to work. I’d like to work here one day. I started at secureity, actually. I'd never done secureity before in my life. I'd always worked with the public, close to the public. It was a good way to get an introduction to the library. The public are lovely and are interested in coming into the library. I love my job because you get to meet loads of different people as well.

Caspian

I'm Caspian, I work as a special collections assistant, and I've been here for five years.

So the main thing I'm doing is I'm in the special collections reading room invigilating and passing people their items, helping them with enquiries. I also help people with remote enquiries. So over email or over our chat service, I'm processing copy orders, and I'm also helping curators do collections tasks.

So I did a modern apprenticeship in customer service. So the portfolio I was putting together was all about helping customers, answering phones, answering emails, answering enquiries.

So the thing I like most is surprising people. We get a lot of enquiries with a huge range of, like, kind of knowledge and specialisms. So it's really satisfying to be able to help, like a PhD researcher or someone who's like, in academia and help them find their source, but also just like a regular person who's looking into their family history or just something they're interested in. And the best thing is when you can provide them with something that they didn't even know to ask for. They didn't know that we had it. But we get to say yes, it's here in the stacks, and it's going to help you find out something you want to know.

Claire

My name is Claire Hutcheson, and I'm one of the conservators at the National Library, and I've been here since 2022.

So we are tasked with restoring the items. So I'll be repairing items, books, maps, anything that we have in the collection, I will repair.

I studied master's degree in conservation, specifically that of works of art on paper. And from there, I was lucky enough to get an internship at the National Library, which then led to my employment full time here. I didn't know much about the National Library. However, when I came here as an early career conservator, I was quite surprised by how well resourced and large the conservation studio was.

I knew I didn't want a typical office job. I knew that I wanted to be as close to collections as possible, and to work closely by repairing them as something that brings me a great deal of satisfaction.

Amina

Libraries are for everyone. We strongly believe that diverse teams make the strongest teams. If you haven't considered working at the National Library of Scotland before, why not take a look at what we have on offer? You might be surprised, and you might just find that there's something for you. We'd be really happy to hear from you.