High Wycombe Library wins £2,000 prize for money saving idea

Award team Carlos Herrero, Waseem Hafiz and Gina Nicholls with Wycombe MP Steve Baker at the Houses of Parliament.

High Wycombe Library has won a prize of £2,000 thanks to an idea to help residents save money when travelling.

Staff at the library picked up the challenge  to devise a way to ‘spend £2,000 to help people spend less money‘.

Their idea was based on their research that many people in High Wycombe didn’t have the digital skills necessary to find transport information online, so they weren’t able to discover routes and choose the cheapest fares.

They had to make a five-minute video explaining their idea, which showed how they would meet the need through a workshop in the calm and trusted environment of the library to help people take their first steps into an ever-growing technological world.

Gina Nicholls, Information and Learning Services Manager, said: ‘Our video proposed ways to save the public money on transport by using digital resources such as dedicated travel apps and websites. This was a new challenge for us and we were fortunate enough to have staff who rose to meet it!‘

Gina, and colleagues Carlos Herrero and Waseem Hafiz, picked up their award at the Houses of Parliament, watched by High Wycombe MP Steve Baker.

Their prize, one of ten national Community Challenge prizes, will go towards a drop in session being held at High Wycombe Library on Thursday 18th October 2018 during national Get Online Week. Travel representatives will be there to show people how they can find travel information online and get the best ticket deals.

Noel Brown, Buckinghamshire County Council Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Public Health, said: ‘We have some really creative colleagues in our libraries, with some fantastic useful ideas, and I congratulate them on this brilliant success. I hope people will find the travel drop-in really helpful.‘

The Community Challenge was launched at the Digital Evolution conference last year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Good Things Foundation.