Events Calendar

closed for field trip 

This is a virtual event only. Join the event at: crowdcast.io/c/the-great-when. Before the event begins, you will see a countdown and the event image.

From the New York Times bestselling author and legendary storyteller Alan Moore, The Great When is the first book in an enthralling new fantasy series about murder, magic, and madness in post-WWII London.

The year is 1949, the city London. Amidst the smog of the capital stumbles Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless eighteen year-old employed by a second-hand bookshop. One day, on an errand to acquire books for sale, Dennis discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, a figment from another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How?

Dennis has stumbled on a book from the Great When, a magical version of London beyond time and space, where reality blurs with fiction and concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous, terrible beings. But this other, magical London must remain a secret: if Dennis cannot find a way to return this book to where it belongs, he risks repercussions, such as his body being turned inside out (or worse).

So begins a journey delving deep into the city's occult underbelly and tarrying with an eccentric cast of sorcerers, gangsters, and murderers – some from legend, some all too real, and all with plans of their own. Soon Dennis finds himself at the centre of an explosive series of events that may alter and endanger both Londons forever...

READ and PLAY together with children ages 5 and under! Engaging with books, songs and playful experiences all help children develop communication skills, patience, empathy, and pre-reading skills. It also helps to build a lifelong love of reading. Library programs are always free. Siblings and childcare groups are welcome.

Do you live or work in Central Madison and have ideas for making our city a safer place to live, play, learn, and work? 

Meet with Madison Police Department Central District Captain Michael Hanson, his Community Policing Advisory Board, and police officers who serve Central Madison every first Tuesday of the month. 

Meet with other community members to learn how community policing is helping to address safety issues in the Central District and ask questions or share ideas.

Sponsored by Madison Police Department and Madison Community Policing Foundation.  For more information, call 608-335-2363, email mcpf-cpab@madisoncommunitypolicingfoundation.org, or visit madisoncommunitypolicingfoundation.org/chatwithacop

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

Join Nate from the Bubbler to learn photography and photo-editing skills using professional-grade cameras and photo-editing software. Each week, participants will take original point-and-shoot photos in the library, then edit those photos using Adobe Photoshop. 

This workshop series is for teens and tweens ages 12-18. Attend one, a few, or all sessions to learn and practice new tricks and techniques.

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. 

Play Minecraft in both creative and survival worlds! Gaming devices will be provided and participants will take turns so that everybody can get their turn to create and explore! Recommended for ages 8 and up.

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.