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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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/

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

Learn simple hardwood chair repair! In this class Sylvie will walk through the basics of chair structure, talk about why different parts fail, and demonstrate how to make simple repairs for common issues like loose spindles or wiggly legs. Repairs will be demonstrated with a drill, screws, glue, dowels, hammer, nails, and creative problem solving. Extend the life of solid wood chairs and learn how to fix things!

This class is recommended for adults. No registration required. Feel free to bring your wooden chair, and we'll repair as many as we can.

This program is part of the Care & Repair program series, which is made possible thanks to support from Beyond the Page, National Endowment for the Humanities and Madison Community Foundation. See all upcoming programs at madpl.org/careandrepair.

About the artist: Sylvie Rosenthal received a BFA from RIT’s School for American Crafts in Woodworking, and received a MFA in sculpture from the UW-Madison. She owns and operates Lower Astronomy Studios, a woodworking, design, and sculpture studio in Madison. Sylvie teaches woodworking and design thinking in many settings, nationally at university, college programs, and craft schools, and in the local community with Madison Public Library. Visit Sylvie's website to learn more: https://www.lowerastronomystudios.com