If you haven’t heard, libraries aren’t just a place for books to sit on a shelf anymore. Did you know you can download ebooks and audiobooks to your mobile device for free with a library card? Or that you’ll soon be able to check out a telescope from Mystic & Noank Library?

Aside from being a peaceful place to sit down and read, we’re also a place for the community to come together and learn. It’s similar to the invigorating experience of a classroom — without the student loans!

One such community event coming up at 6 p.m. Dec. 9 at is a mental health and wellness seminar. The facilitator of this event, Noank resident Francine Figueroa, carries almost a decade’s worth of experience as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

Throughout her time working with patients, she’s been trained to support the healing of people with mood, anxiety and eating disorders, trauma and PTSD, addiction, grief and loss, and more.

We invite the community to attend to open up space for a conversation, not just about mental illness but about mental health as a whole.

So many of these topics come across as taboo in workplaces, at family dinner tables and friendly chit chat. But lessening that stigma is step one toward building happier, healthier families and communities.

Figueroa will instruct participants on a few mindfulness practices that can help us reduce stress and feel balanced in daily life. There will also be time to ask questions and share stories about your own struggles and triumphs, or those of loved ones.

Tune into your local libraries to see what we’re busy behind the scenes organizing for you. We’ll even renew your library card if it’s been awhile. (We never judge!)

Erik Caswell is the adult services librarian at Mystic and Noank Library. The new feature Library Notes is expected to run monthly in the Times.