County Librarian - Kerry County Council

The closing date for this vacancy is 20/08/2026, 15:00

The library service supports national and local initiatives such as the Right to Read programme, Healthy Ireland at Your Library, the Age Friendly Libraries initiative, Ireland Reads, the Bealtaine Festival, Skills for Life, and Climate Action strategies.

The County Librarian is responsible for the strategic leadership, management, and development of the library service across the county and the role involves setting direction, ensuring high quality service delivery, managing resources, and promoting the library as a central hub for information, learning, culture, and community engagement.

A full Job Summary/Description is available in the Information Booklet.

Main Duties of the Job

To ensure that the Public Library Service will play a strategic role in the development of the Information Society.

To identify areas of opportunity/innovations that will enhance the experience of the library service across the County.

To consider and pursue any capital investment needed and identify and utilise sources of funding to strengthen library services.

To ensure that the libraries are vibrant community spaces, where literature, arts, culture, and community groups can engage with library services, broader local authority services, and broader community services.

To co-operate with the use of public libraries in providing access to local authority services by the public.

A full list of main duties is available in the Information Booklet.

Information about the organisation

Kerry County Council is the authority responsible for Local Government in County Kerry. The Council headquarters are located at Áras an Chontae, Rathass, Tralee County Kerry and there are five Municipal Districts Municipal District of Tralee, Municipal District of Killarney, Municipal District of Listowel, Municipal District of Kenmare and Municipal District of Castleisland-Corca Dhuibhne . Kerry County Council has 33 elected members and approximately 1500 staff.

County Kerry has a population of approximately 156,500 people in an area covering 4,700 square kilometres and 3 peninsulas. Kerry County Council is responsible for the delivery of the full range of local government services in the county. Kerry County Council seeks to enhance the county's attraction as a place in which to invest, work, and live, and takes the lead role in shaping the strategic vision of the county. It provides a diverse, multi-layered and evolving range of services across a large geographic area, which includes the provision of housing, climate action, planning, development, environmental, roads and traffic, leisure, culture, economic development, and community services.

The Council works in partnership with communities, other state, public and private bodies in the delivery of infrastructure, regeneration and a broad range of services and shared services. It also operates the Local Government Operational Procurement Centre which is a national shared service with responsibility for managing, developing, and promoting procurement best practice for Plant Hire and Minor Building Works & Civils contracts for the entire public and civil service.

Its overall operations are supported by internal services which include ICT, Corporate, Finance, Legal and People Development.

An opportunity now exists in Kerry County Council for the position of County Librarian.

Salary Scale effective from 1st June 2026:

Hours of attendance will be fixed from time to time but will amount to not less than 35 hours gross per week.

The annual leave allowance for the position of County Librarian is 30 days.

Selection Process Details

A ranking and or shortlisting exercise may be carried out on the basis of information supplied in your application form. The criteria for ranking and or shortlisting are based on the requirements of the post as outlined in the eligibility criteria and skills, competencies and/or knowledge section of this job specification. Therefore it is very important that you think about your experience in light of those requirements.

Failure to include information regarding these requirements may result in you not being called forward to the next stage of the selection process.

Local authorities are committed equal opportunities employers.

Recruitment for this role is managed by publicjobs.

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