Shelburne Public Library shares upcoming events, services, recommended read

November 20, 2025 · 0 Comments

Our Silent Auction and Book Sale are almost here. We are still accepting new or gently used items in excellent condition. Please contact the library to inquire about donating. All funds raised go back into your library.

We hope to see you on Dec. 6.

Last week, we told you about Ancestry Library Edition, and this week, we want to highlight another fantastic service you can access from the comfort of your home.

LinkedIn Learning provides access to high-quality video courses taught by real-world industry experts. You can upgrade your technology, creative, and business skills, and earn certifications. With thousands of courses to choose from, LinkedIn learning is your destination for lifelong learning, and all you need to get started is a library card.

Recommended read:

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults.

Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s and was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism.

Why Shannon recommends it: Parenting can be difficult, and with children’s ease of access to social media and their rapid consumption of mass amounts of information and curated content (thanks to algorithms), it is even harder.

As parents, we want to empower our children to make healthy choices and live happy lives, but it can be difficult to know where to start, especially when it comes to smartphones and social media.

In The Anxious Generation, Haidt explains the negative impact of a phone-based childhood and what we can do to bring back a play-based childhood.

My biggest takeaway from Haidt’s research was that we overprotect children in the physical world and underprotect them online.

Fun fact – Haidt’s research helped inspire schools all over North America, including right here in Shelburne, to go phone-free.