Wisconsin Book Festival Presents: Steven Espada Dawson for Late to the Search Party

A raw, crystalline debut poetry collection exploring themes of family, addiction, belonging, and loss—a searching elegy of the fissures that have come to define contemporary American life. The unsettled border between absence and presence haunts this stunning collecti......More

A raw, crystalline debut poetry collection exploring themes of family, addiction, belonging, and loss—a searching elegy of the fissures that have come to define contemporary American life. The unsettled border between absence and presence haunts this stunning collection, in which poet laureate Steven Espada Dawson contemplates belonging, identity, family, and grief in poems about his own half-immigrant Mexican American family: his dying mother who raised him, his addict brother who has been missing for more than a decade, and his absent father. Chronicled in four parts, shifting restlessly between childhood memories, the sudden disappearance of his brother, and the inevitable loss of his ailing mother, Late to the Search Party explores what it means to be a family of one—to be orphaned, whether by fate or by circumstance. In language that is both grounded and ethereal, Dawson tallies the losses and looks at what remains: the frustration and anger, the bewilderment and sadness—and the affection and humor that makes itself felt in spite of everything. A vivid and thoughtful meditation on love and loss, Late to the Search Party is an ode to the families that inspire and confound us all. < p> View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/wisconsin-book-festival-presents-steven-espada-dawson-late-search-party-21329

Central Library - Meeting Rooms 301 and 302 Combined

Baby & Toddler Storytime (ages birth to 3)

READ and PLAY with your favorite baby or toddler! Reading, singing, talking and playing with your baby from the beginning is important because the roots of language are developing in a baby’s brain even before they can talk! Library programs are always free. Siblings a......More

READ and PLAY with your favorite baby or toddler! Reading, singing, talking and playing with your baby from the beginning is important because the roots of language are developing in a baby’s brain even before they can talk! Library programs are always free. Siblings and childcare groups are welcome. From May 5-11 we celebrate Children's Book Week. The 2025 theme is 'An Ocean of Stories', so come by anytime this week and add to our big Story Ocean art project! View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/baby-toddler-storytime-ages-birth-3-28672

Central Library - Youth Program Room

Multi Age Storytime (children & families 5 & under)

READ and PLAY together with children under age 5! 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 fr......More

READ and PLAY together with children under age 5! 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. Older and Younger siblings and childcare groups are welcome. From May 5-11 we celebrate Children's Book Week. The 2025 theme is 'An Ocean of Stories', so come by anytime this week and add to our big Story Ocean art project! View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/multi-age-storytime-children-families-5-under-28673

Central Library - Youth Program Room

Bubbler Room Closed 9am-12pm

weekly youth Bubbler workshop View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/bubbler-room-closed-9am-12pm-28448

Central Library - Bubbler

Free Mending

We’re here to mend anything you need for the colder months, including clothing, coats, and any other fabric-related repairs, except for zippers. Sewers from the Sewing Machine Project will be available to mend your things for free every Thursday of the month. View th......More

We’re here to mend anything you need for the colder months, including clothing, coats, and any other fabric-related repairs, except for zippers. Sewers from the Sewing Machine Project will be available to mend your things for free every Thursday of the month. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/free-mending-21330

Central Library - Study Room 211

Second Harvest FoodShare

Provides FoodShare (food assistance on a QUEST Card) benefit information: help applying and submitting documents, assistance with renewals and reporting changes, as well as ongoing benefit support. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events......More

Provides FoodShare (food assistance on a QUEST Card) benefit information: help applying and submitting documents, assistance with renewals and reporting changes, as well as ongoing benefit support. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/second-harvest-foodshare-21331

Central Library - Study Room 211

One-on-One Computer Assistance

Get help brushing up on essential computer skills, safely browsing the internet, creating and using an email address, filling out online applications, or even writing resumes and cover letters. Sign up for a one-hour one-on-one appointment by stopping into the Central......More

Get help brushing up on essential computer skills, safely browsing the internet, creating and using an email address, filling out online applications, or even writing resumes and cover letters. Sign up for a one-hour one-on-one appointment by stopping into the Central Library or calling the reference desk at 608-266-6350. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/one-one-computer-assistance-21332

Central Library - Study Room 211

Personal Archiving Lab: Drop-In Tutorials

The Personal Archiving Lab at Central Library is a collection of equipment that can be used to digitize at-risk analog materials like home movies video tapes audio cassettes photographs and more. Stop by the Central Library on Mondays, 2-4pm (Room 209) for a tutorial o......More

The Personal Archiving Lab at Central Library is a collection of equipment that can be used to digitize at-risk analog materials like home movies video tapes audio cassettes photographs and more. Stop by the Central Library on Mondays, 2-4pm (Room 209) for a tutorial on how to use the library's Personal Archiving Lab. Tutorial duration is approximately 20-30 minutes. The instructor may not be able to accommodate those who arrive after 3:40pm. Following the tutorial, you will be able to make an appointment during library hours to use the equipment - up to 3 hours per day - for your personal archiving project. The Personal Archiving Lab supports the following formats: VHS and VHS-C tapes DVDs (not BluRay); audio cassettes; MiniDV; photographs (including negatives and slides) and other paper-based documents. It does not support 8 or 16mm reel-to-reel film or audio tape. We are unable to offer digitization for Hi-8 tapes at this time. Patrons who use the lab must bring some form of external storage — a portable hard drive, or a thumb drive — on which digital files can be stored. Call 608-266-6350 for more information. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/personal-archiving-lab-drop-tutorials-21333

Central Library - Media Lab

Wisconsin Book Festival Presents: Jane Hirshfield for The Asking

Presented in partnership with the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. This event is free and open to the public, however we do ask that you please re......More

Presented in partnership with the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. This event is free and open to the public, however we do ask that you please register in advance.  In an era of algorithm, assertion, silo, and induced distraction, Jane Hirshfield’s poems bring a much-needed awakening response, actively countering narrowness. The Asking takes its title from the close of one of its thirty-one new poems: “don’t despair of this falling world, not yet / didn’t it give you the asking.” Interrogating language and life, pondering beauty amid bewilderment and transcendence amid transience, Hirshfield offers a signature investigation of the conditions, contradictions, uncertainties, and astonishments that shape our existence. A leading advocate for the biosphere and the alliance of science and imagination, she brings to both inner and outer quandaries an abiding compass: the choice to embrace what is, to face with courage, curiosity, and a sense of kinship whatever comes. In poems that consider the smallest ant and the vastness of time, hunger and bounty, physics, war, and love in myriad forms, this collection—drawing from nine previous books and five decades of writing—brings the insights and slant-lights that come to us only through poetry’s arc, delve, and tact; through a vision both close and sweeping; through music-inflected thought and recombinant leap. With its quietly magnifying brushwork and numinous clarities, The Asking expands our awareness of both breakage’s grief and the possibility for repair. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/wisconsin-book-festival-presents-jane-hirshfield-asking-26294

Central Library - Meeting Rooms 301 and 302 Combined

Bubbler Room Closed 9am - 12pm

Bubbler Room is closed for a community group. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/bubbler-room-closed-9am-12pm-28643

Central Library - Bubbler

Coffee & Connection

Each month, Central Library invites local social service providers to share about the different resources they offer to those in need of assistance. Hear a short, informal presentation while enjoying coffee and refreshments and connecting with others who have similar e......More

Each month, Central Library invites local social service providers to share about the different resources they offer to those in need of assistance. Hear a short, informal presentation while enjoying coffee and refreshments and connecting with others who have similar experiences. There will be plenty of time to connect 1-on-1 or in small groups with providers and ask questions about the services they provide.  On May 13th, meet with... LIFT Wisconsin What They Do: LIFT Wisconsin provides efficient, innovative technology-driven assistance that dismantles the legal barriers preventing Wisconsinites from achieving economic stability.How They Do It: LIFT Wisconsin provides access to Legal Tune Up – a free, online, DIY tool that makes it easy to identify and clear civil legal problems on your own, by accessing public data; directing users to legal, employment, and health services; and providing tips to help with driver’s license problems, removing criminal and eviction records, and more. No registration is required. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/coffee-connection-27686

Central Library - Cafe Area

The Wisconsin Book Festival Presents: Rickey Fayne for The Devil Three Times

Yetunde awakens aboard a slave ship en route to the United States with the spirit of her dead sister as her only companion. Desperate to survive the hell that awaits her at their destination, Yetunde finds help in an unexpected form—the Devil himself. The Devil, seekin......More

Yetunde awakens aboard a slave ship en route to the United States with the spirit of her dead sister as her only companion. Desperate to survive the hell that awaits her at their destination, Yetunde finds help in an unexpected form—the Devil himself. The Devil, seeking a way to reenter the pearly gates of heaven, decides to prove himself to an indifferent God by protecting Yetunde and granting her a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice.   Their bargain extends far beyond Yetunde’s mortal lifespan. Over the next 175 years, the Devil visits Yetunde’s descendants in their darkest hour of need: Lucille, a conjure woman; Asa, who passes for white; Louis and Virgil, who risk becoming a twentieth-century Cain and Abel; Cassandra, who speaks to the dead; James, who struggles to make sense of the past while fighting to keep his family together; and many others. The Devil offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while wondering: can he save himself, too?   Steeped in the spiritual traditions and oral history of the Black diaspora, The Devil Three Times is a baptism by fire and water, heralding a new voice in American fiction. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/wisconsin-book-festival-presents-rickey-fayne-devil-three-times-26196

Central Library - Meeting Rooms 301 and 302 Combined

Bubbler Room Closed 12pm-3pm

Closed for community youth group workshop. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/bubbler-room-closed-12pm-3pm-26220

Central Library - Bubbler

Library closed for Staff In-Service

Library closed for Staff In-Service All Libraries

All Libraries

Free Mending

We’re here to mend anything you need for the colder months, including clothing, coats, and any other fabric-related repairs, except for zippers. Sewers from the Sewing Machine Project will be available to mend your things for free every Thursday of the month. View th......More

We’re here to mend anything you need for the colder months, including clothing, coats, and any other fabric-related repairs, except for zippers. Sewers from the Sewing Machine Project will be available to mend your things for free every Thursday of the month. View this event at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/spaces/events/free-mending-21334

Central Library - Study Room 211