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.

Bring your favorite hot drink and we'll provide a yummy treat for you to enjoy while your little one plays with a variety of interesting, open-ended materials. Connect with other caregivers in a warm, safe environment.

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.

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. 

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.

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 local artist Amy Mietzel for hands-on art projects!

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

Final Open Studio for Phil!

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.

The state’s political maps changed in the wake of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision striking down the old maps. Join the League of Women Voters of Dane County to discuss the impacts of past gerrymandering, whether the new maps had any effect on the Nov. 5 election, and what voters need to do to ensure future elections represent the will of the people, including considering alternatives to the Electoral College.

This event is presented in partnership with Sequoya Library and will also be hosted simultaneously through Zoom; more information will be emailed to you upon registration. Zoom is a free video platform, and you can watch on a browser, through the free mobile app for ios or android, or call in to participate by voice only. If you would like to join by Zoom, please register at this link. Registration is not necessary for in-person attendance.

Moderated by Katrina V. Willis 

Speakers:

Charles Franklin: Marquette School of Policy

Iuseley Flores: Fair Maps

Debra Cronmiller: President of League of Women Voters of Wisconsin