Events Calendar

Read and play with your favorite baby or toddler! Engaging with books, songs and playful experiences all help children develop communication skills, patience, empathy, and pre-reading skills and helps to build a lifelong love of reading.

Library programs are always free. Siblings and childcare groups are welcome.

Storytime for the Very Young is intended for children ages 0 to 3 years old.

October is the Month of The Play Makers at the Alicia Ashman Library! In this 5 week program, children will engage in self-directed play for the whole time while the adults will start each week with a quick tutorial on how to bring more opportunities for True Play into their daily life, then spend time deeply observing the play that's happening. Register for this special series if you're curious about True Play (or Anji Play) or if you've ever wished that your child would play more independently or if you've ever felt awkward around other caregivers at the playground or if you're interested in learning how to host a relaxed playdate in your own home! Everyone will remain in the same room throughout this program (no separation anxiety!).    Sign up here for the whole series!

Growing Voices Music Class is an interactive class for caregivers and their children, birth-4, to play, learn, and bond with music. In our classes we sing, play instruments, dance, and have fun together! 

Funding is provided by the Monroe Street Library League

The Madison Writing Assistance (MWA) program offers free, one-to-one writing support for community members at library branches throughout the city. Our friendly, experienced writing coaches are happy to help with writing projects across a wide range of genres, including resumes, cover letters, application essays, grant proposals, fiction writing, memoirs, and more.

Schedule an appointment online with the link below, by phone, or in person.

MWA services are made possible through generous donations from the Evjue Foundation and UW Anonymous Fund, along with administrative and program support from the UW-Madison English Department, the UW-Madison Writing Center, and our Library and neighborhood center partners.

The Madison Writing Assistance (MWA) program offers free, one-to-one writing support for community members at library branches throughout the city. Our friendly, experienced writing coaches are happy to help with writing projects across a wide range of genres, including resumes, cover letters, application essays, grant proposals, fiction writing, memoirs, and more.

Schedule an appointment online with the link below, by phone, or in person.

MWA services are made possible through generous donations from the Evjue Foundation and UW Anonymous Fund, along with administrative and program support from the UW-Madison English Department, the UW-Madison Writing Center, and our Library and neighborhood center partners.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

Learn how to get around the city with help from Metro Transit, as they introduce their new Fast Fare system! This Go By Metro series is dedicated to everything Fast Fare. Metro Transit and City employees will be distributing the new reloadable cards and staff will also be available to answer questions, help riders set up online accounts, add any half-price entitlements and trade in unused passes/cards. Get the latest updates on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

The Madison Writing Assistance (MWA) program offers free, one-to-one writing support for community members at library branches throughout the city. Our friendly, experienced writing coaches are happy to help with writing projects across a wide range of genres, including resumes, cover letters, application essays, grant proposals, fiction writing, memoirs, and more.

Schedule an appointment online with the link below, by phone, or in person.

MWA services are made possible through generous donations from the Evjue Foundation and UW Anonymous Fund, along with administrative and program support from the UW-Madison English Department, the UW-Madison Writing Center, and our Library and neighborhood center partners.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

Come on in and share tips or get advice! Please bring your own supplies. All skill levels welcome.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

In partnership with the City of Madison and Madison Public Library, the African Center for Community Development provides in-person assistance* to help offset housing costs by assisting residents with applications for services, jobs, and other financial benefits.

We provide help for people navigating application processes and filling out forms required for housing, immigration, food, health, and other community support services. For questions about the program, please call African Center at 608-957-5623 or 608-294-0066.

*Neither The African Center for Community Development nor Madison Public Library can provide legal assistance or advice.  We are not able to fill out applications on your behalf, or assess program eligibility. 

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

It Takes A Village After-School Enrichment sessions are created in an effort to promote community, and a safe place for youth patron between 12 and 18 years old. Which could be open to invited guests who have created activities for community youth. 

Join Pinney Library's 2024 Artist-in-Resident, Phil Hassett for weekly Open Studio letterpress printing!

Most Tuesdays, 4:30-6:30 pm, May-Nov 2024

Title: Call & Response

"Taking inspiration from jazz and improvisational musical practices, this residency will use letterpress printmaking to explore many levels of interplay and collaboration between text & layout, word & image, letter & ornament, color & form, and artist & community. Over the course of the residency we will work with wood & metal type and ornaments to print at a variety of sizes—from buttons to posters, and we’ll explore layering, iterative collaboration, and ways that the rigid grids of letterpress type can be used as a foundation for both carefully planned and improvisational prints. We’ll explore the use of letters to create images and the use of ornaments to create letterforms, how communities shape words and stories and how words and stories shape communities. Along the way we’ll get a little inky, and have a lot of fun."

About Phil: 

He is a letterpress printer living in Madison, WI, where he maintains a small collection of historic printing presses and a growing collection of historic and modern printing type. A lifelong musician, he named his print studio Washboard Press because of the sound one of his presses makes, and because he enjoys doing by hand what is now more usually done in a more automated way. 

Visit his website https://www.washboardpress.com/about/

Join The Kids Chef, Lily Kilfoy, for a series of cooking classes for school-age kids, tweens, and their families. Participants will learn about different foods, where they come from, how to follow recipes, and how to use a variety of tools.  Registration is not required, but participation will be limited to the first 25 attendees. 

Food generously provided by Willy St. Co-op North.

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

Visitors of all ages are invited to come by the Bubbler Room and work with TetraPAKMAN on engaging, tactile art-making out of recycled materials. Whether we’re building a large-scale, community-generated social sculpture or creating the unthinkable through cardboard construction we need your help!

Some of his ongoing projects include painting bedsheets for a upcoming installation, creating messages out of old keyboard keys or using everyday objects like lids, boxes, and twist-ties to make larger than life sculpture forms.

Many of TetraPAKMAN’s projects scale up or down based on age and timeframe — so come by for 5 minutes, an hour, or more and we will be Doing Something. We’d love your creative additions as he works to transform the Bubbler Room at Central Library!

About the Artist: TetraPAKMAN is a Madison-based artist who has long considered concepts around conservation, and often creates using repurposed/recycled materials. TetraPAKMAN’s practice is focused on community-generated social sculpture projects. His work is about the future, and the challenges we face today as a community. He explores the role of art as a mechanism to generate awareness about the climate crisis.

Join us to celebrate the reveal of the Meadowridge Library model created by neighborhood youth during our My Library/Your Library program. Come dressed in costumes to view the model, add yourself to our community, enjoy snacks, and leave with fun pictures from our photo booth.

Wisconsin People & Ideas, the Wisconsin Academy’s magazine of contemporary Wisconsin thought and culture, presents a Wisconsin Book Festival reading featuring the winners of the statewide 2024 Fiction & Poetry Contests. 

2024 Fiction and Poetry Contest Winners

Fiction:

1st place: “Mending Ruth” – Bob Wake, Cambridge

2nd Place: “Baby Teeth” – C.E. Perry, Madison

3rd Place: “Complications from a Fall” – Linda Falkenstein, Madison

Poetry:

1st place: “Al-Eashiq” – Diya Abbas, Madison

2nd Place: “grand(father) sheds his grudges” – Han Raschka, Madison

3rd Place: “Bodies of Water” – Lisa Vihos, Sheboygan