Have you ever had a great idea to improve the Library, Archives & Learning Services here at York, but not known what to do with it? This is your chance to work with us to shape our services and to improve the experience of fellow students for years to come.
The winning idea will receive a prize of £1,000 and we will work with you to introduce it to the Library and wider services. The winner will also receive the title 'Library Innovator 2023’.
Your ideas could be about the resources that we stock or how they are accessed, they may be about technology or activities we have within the library. Any ideas are welcome, no matter how big or small they are.
In addition to the main prize, we may also award smaller cash prizes for ideas that we don't shortlist but that we are able to implement quickly and easily, improving the library experience for all.
See the tabs below for information about previous years, and what makes a good submission for the competition. Details about entry and the submission form can be found directly below.
Submissions open on Monday 16 January and close on Sunday 29 January.
We’ll be shortlisting soon after, and successful students will have the chance to develop and pitch their idea in front of a judging panel on Wednesday 1 March.
Please read the full terms and conditions to understand more of what we are looking for and the judging process.
Ready to tell us your brilliant idea?
The 2020 LisInspo was held on Wednesday 26 February 2020. It featured 6 finalists who pitched their ideas to the audience in a five-minute presentation window, followed by questions from the panel and audience.
The guest speaker and host was Alison Barrow - a sociology alumni of York and now PR director for Transworld Books, as well as Trustee of the Womens Prize for books.
The six finalists were from the Maths department, electronic engineering, education, health sciences and two students from psychology. Each presentation was excellent, with a series of sketches depicting the full extent of an outdoor nature study area and mock ups of room availability interfaces and digital screens.
The overall winner was Shelly Vipond with their idea for a family friendly space in the library. The idea was a response to NUS surveys and experiences of guilt when parents leave their children in order to study.
Annabel McMahon was awarded Highly Commended for their room availability and booking tablet idea.
The final judging event took place on Thursday 28 February in the Ron Cooke Hub in Campus East. Five student finalists presented their pitch to a judging panel and audience members, including Library and Archives staff, other staff from across the University and a number of students. Each finalist gave a presentation of up to five minutes, followed by questions from the judges.
The event host was Richard Morris, a York alumnus and CEO of The Giving Machine. Richard introduced the event and each finalist, and gave a keynote about his career since leaving York whilst the judges selected the winning submission.
The Library Innovators 2019 were Yuveer Ramchandani (TFTI) and Daniel Famiyeh (Electronic Engineering) who pitched their app “Deskmate” to monitor study space availability within the library. Yuveer and Daniel created the app from scratch, utilising our publicly available live library data.
Eleanor Ingham (SPSW) was awarded Highly Commended for her idea “Electronic library card and UoY app”. Eleanor impressed the judges with her market research.
Congratulations to the rest of our finalist who also gave great pitches:
As a result of the LibInspo competitions of 2019 and 2020, The Library, Archives and Learning services have:
We’re looking for ideas with plenty of detail! We need enough information about your idea to decide whether it’s worthy of being a Libinspo finalist.
Space is a popular theme for LibInspo, with previous entries successfully developing spaces for wellbeing and family study. While we aren’t discouraging any themes (if you have a fantastic idea about space, please tell us) here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing…
With £1,000 up for grabs you might want to spend time thinking how to promote your distinctive idea, and make it as attention-grabbing as possible. Here are some tips to ensure a good submission: