Nuffield was founded in 1937 and is an entirely post-graduate college (with approximately 60 fellows and 80 post-graduate students) specialising in Politics, Economics, and Sociology. It is situated on New Road, about 5 minutes' walk from the train station and two minutes from the city centre.

Whilst the college itself is not particularly large, the library is enormous by college standards, with around six kilometres of shelving. It is mainly housed in the eleven floors of the college tower, however only seven of these are open to readers (the higher floors are locked due to fire regulations and instead are used to store archive material).

In addition to the tower, the library has two large reading rooms, a periodicals room and the library extension (which holds a large collection of government publications). College members have 24hr access via a swipecard system. Books are issued at the circulation desk by a member of staff during opening hours and a self-issue system operates overnight.

External readers (graduates and members of University/College staff) are given reading access during opening hours. Others (undergraduates and Bodleian card holders) may only consult items if the material is unavailable elsewhere in Oxford. Opening hours are 9.30am - 5.30pm, Mon-Fri, with no evening or weekend opening. At present there are five full-time members of staff, one part-time and the trainee.

The trainee concentrates on book acquisitions whilst participating fully in the weekly rota of desk duties (approx 12 hrs per week). So, any one day can include:

• Shifts on the Circulation and Enquiry desks
• One lunchtime shift a week (in return for which one receives flexi-hours)
• Dealing with Inter-Library Loan requests from Nuffield members and other libraries
• Ordering, receiving, labelling and book-plating books
• Maintaining library web pages
• Organising the New Books Display
• Shelving
• Sorting the post and processing new journals
• Project work, on a topic arranged in consultation with the supervisor
• Attending weekly trainee sessions with Bodleian Libraries trainees
• Updating and monitoring the library's facebook page

The college has generous funds for book purchasing, and we receive about 15 books a week. Books are ordered both as firm orders and on approval (where College Fellows decide whether or not to buy the book in question). New books go on display at the end of the week, and a weekly list of new books is put on the Accessions page of the library website here. The trainee also uploads new books onto 'librarything' to update the New Books RSS Feed for readers.

As well as acquisitions work the trainee also takes responsibility for all Inter-Library Loans going from or coming to Nuffield, using the British Library Document Supply Centre or any number of regional libraries.

No-one should feel inhibited about applying to Nuffield due to its subject specialisation - prospective trainees are not expected to have a background in Politics, Economics, or Sociology. Previous trainees have had degrees in a variety of subjects ranging from Music to Russian and you are in no way disadvantaged by a lack of in-depth subject knowledge.

Like many libraries, IT plays a large role in the lives of both library staff and users; most information about the library can be found on its website, books can be searched for and renewed using the online catalogue, and many journals can be accessed online. Indeed, at least 75% of the trainee's duties involve using a computer. In addition, each member of staff is also responsible for one section of the library's web-pages.

The job involves a fair amount of responsibility and is well supported by the other members of staff, accustomed as they are to trainees. Furthermore, the trainee usually starts at the beginning of September which allows them to get to grips with their duties before the arrival of students at the beginning of October. In sum, Nuffield provides a broad introduction to library work and operates in a calm and supportive environment. The trainee is immediately part of the library team and has every opportunity to learn many of the skills needed for a library career.

For more information on trainee posts in Oxford please visit the Oxford Libraries Graduate Trainee Programme Blog.