Those of you who reside in south-central Wisconsin already know the majesty of our public library system. If you are new here, there are some compelling reasons to get a library card:
- Madison Public Library will let you check out CDs; the UW–Madison libraries will not
- MPL has a wider selection of DVDs than the UW–Madison libraries
- Library items from anywhere in the South Central Library System can be shuttled to the branch nearest you to be picked up (almost) at your convenience, like a free Netflix that takes a little more walking
Example:
Let’s say you wanted to listen to a professional audiobook of Jane Eyre rather than the free but amateur LibriVox version I mention below. The UW–Madison library has no audiobooks of JE; the Madison Public Library has 3 versions and 8 copies (one, unfortunately, abridged).
Or let’s say you want to hear more music by Leonard Bernstein. UW–Madison’s Mills Music Library, in the basement of Memorial Library, has 782 CDs by Bernstein—an amazing number of albums, but you aren’t allowed to leave the library with any of them: each CD can be checked out for 2 hours, and must be listened to right in Mills. In contrast, Madison Public Library has only 206 Bernstein CDs, but any of them can be checked out for two weeks and listened to at your leisure.
Or let’s say you wanted to check out a copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to review it for Essay 4. Here are your DVD choices at the public library: 4 editions, 22 copies, any of which can be checked out for a week. There’s only one copy in the UW–Madison libraries, in the Microform/Media Center at Memorial Library; although it can be checked out for two weeks instead of just one, you have to be lucky and get that one copy before anyone else.
The library closest to campus is also the largest library in the system: Central Library, at 201 West Mifflin, will have on hand copies of nearly all the movies and music we are working with this summer. Getting a library card is easy and, of course, free.
