Imagine spaces built for connection: when you give a gift to Madison Public Library Foundation, you’re doing just that.
You’re not just funding needs like furniture, equipment, and facilities maintenance, you’re providing tables where clubs meet, kitchens where neighbors share meals, and rooms where teens see themselves reflected. These are the reliable, welcoming spaces that communities grow and thrive in.
Thanks to donations from generous donors like you, Library spaces across Madison are being refreshed, repaired, and reimagined—not as mere amenities, but as places where connection can take root.
Hawthorne Library: Making Room for More People at the Table
Hawthorne Library recently refreshed their community room, with help from funds granted from the Foundation. Youth Services Librarian Jessi Havens sees every day how improvements to library spaces help create community.
“Libraries build community through offering a positive space for gatherings and group activities,” Havens says.
Until recently, Hawthorne’s community room had four broken tables that were heavy and hard to move. With foundation-funded upgrades, that’s changed. New community room tables now allow Hawthorne to accommodate larger programs and host meetings that simply weren’t possible before. Sometimes, breaking down a barrier to access is as simple as making sure there’s enough room for everyone who wants to participate.
Youth programs like Cooking Club, We Make: Art Club, Tech Time: Minecraft & More, and community conversations like Teejop and Beyond are now able to gather comfortably—transforming a once-limited use space into a shared creative hub.
For upcoming youth and adult programs at Hawthorne Library, click the button below.
Lakeview Library: Building Community Around Food, Art, and Discovery
Library spaces are free and open to everyone—and that openness creates unexpected opportunities for connecting, highlighting the role that libraries play in the fabric of our community.
“Chef Lily’s cooking classes illustrate this fact,” reports Youth Services Librarian Madeleine Kaine. “We see this when we see not only the participating kids & families and teens at a class, but when the delicious, nutritious meals are offered to every single person in the library.”
Kaine reveals that Lakeview Library’s staff regularly observe neighbors sharing a meal, when they might have just stopped into the library for a book or to read the newspaper.
Programs like cooking classes also support literacy–helping young patrons learn to read, interpret, and follow recipes while connecting them with cookbooks they can check out and use at home.
Nearby, a new Teen Room sign tells another story of a community built through shared space. Crafted by the late artist and woodworker Sylvie Rosenthal and painted local tweens and teens during a Library event facilitated by Havens, the sign reflects the creativity and collaboration that define Lakeview’s youth community.
A refresh at Lakeview that included brighter paint and lighting, new shelving units, and a more welcoming layout also supported making the library a more welcoming and inclusive space. This section of the library includes popular titles in the library’s “Too Good to Miss”, “What’s New” displays, an expanded graphic novel section, and a new Culture collection.
Central Library: Investing in Comfort and Reliability
This February and March, Central Library is undergoing its own refresh. The library, which welcomes over 300,000 visitors each year, will have updated seating being installed on the first and second floors to create more comfortable, welcoming spaces for visitors.
Behind the scenes, upcoming infrastructure improvements will also bring upgrades to the library’s cooling (chiller) system. The change will improve long-term building reliability and patron comfort—ensuring the Library remains a dependable space for gathering, learning, and connecting year-round.
Imagine the Possibilities
The spaces inside our libraries shape the stories that unfold there — friendships formed at shared tables, confidence built in a teen room, neighbors connecting over a warm meal.
These moments don’t happen by accident. They happen because people like you believe that public libraries matter.
As our city grows and changes, the need to build spaces that create community grows. Your support ensures that every branch remains a place where anyone can walk in and find connection and community.
Join us in building what comes next. Make a gift today and help ensure that Madison’s libraries continue to be spaces where community thrives.
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