Jocelyn Macnab wins LibInspo 2025!

Five student finalists took part in LibInspo this year, in front of an audience in the Berrick Saul building. They were pitching their ideas to a judging panel of five staff from across professional services, competing to win £500 for themselves and the chance to work with the library on their innovation. All five presentations were brilliant.

• Gracie Harte from the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, pitched Quacking Good Reads, a student-led recommended reads display. Part of the aim was to encourage students to make the most of the opportunities the library gives them, and read beyond their subject area: "...most students will never again have free access to this sheer amount of material in their lives."
• Emma Nicholls from the School for Business and Society pitched a Student Takeover idea: a weekly area in the library for societies, clubs and student projects to advertise themselves and enable laid-back interactions with students wanting to find out more about them, avoiding the overwhelm that can come with all the many options available to students.
• Chaitanya Kolanjithodi Mahabalakrishnaprasad from the Department of Economics and Related Studies, pitched a Cognitive and Mental Gym. A dedicated space where tools, resources and information would be readily available for students who wish to work on their mental health and emotional composure - taking the idea of a dedicated space for working out and applying to the mind.
• Samuel Harris from the Psychology Department pitched Student Led, Student Fed - a food pantry idea for students to help tackle the problem of food poverty leading to reduced concentration and academic achievement. Samuel was in fact the reigning Library Innovator, having won LibInpso 2023 with the Sensory Rooms - it's the first time a previous entrant has re-entered the competition, which we encourage as we don't want to put any kind of limit on where good student ideas come from.

The winner was Jocelyn Macnab, a Philosophy student, with her Study Buddy idea. This was a proposal for an app that would pair people for body doubling as a way to increase the quality of their academic study. Jocelyn cited the definition of body doubling from verywellmind.com which is as follows:

A student who goes to the library to study in public is body doubling, as is a student who invites a friend to work on different projects in their home together.

Body doubling refers to doing a task with another person present. You can ask a friend to be your body double and simply share space with you while you complete a task, or you can go somewhere where you know others will be present.

The body double does not need to actively help with the task, and they can do something unrelated while you complete the task. They are simply present in the space while you complete the task that needs to be done. Two people with ADHD can simultaneously body-double for each other while doing unrelated necessary tasks in the same space at the same time.

Although body doubling can be especially useful for students with ADHD, it can be universally useful: Jocelyn cited research from ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing that showed 66% of neurodivergent people use body doubling, and 85% of people are more likely to complete a task in the presence of another person.

We have begun work to pilot Jocelyn's winning idea; more updates on this when we have them. 

You can see more pictures from the day via our LibInspo thread on Bluesky. Special thanks go to Vikki Goddard who gave a brilliant keynote speech despite being only two days into her new role as Chief Academic Services Officer for the University.

Huge congratulations to Joceyln and to all our finalists - it was a brilliant event!