The Hawthorne Branch Library, an affiliate library under the Madison Public Library (MPL), serves almost two hundred seventy thousand residents in Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin, which lies west of Milwaukee. The Hawthorne Branch contributes to the overall collection and services of MPL, which maintains a little more than 1.7 million book and serial volumes plus more than one hundred thirty-three thousand electronic books and circulates more than 2.6 million items per year. Founded in 1874 and officially opened to the public as the Madison Free Library in two rooms of City Hall in 1875, MPL started with only 3,170 volumes given by the Madison Institute. Today, Hawthorne is only one of the eight branches, the central library plus the Dream Bus.