The Monroe Street Branch Library, an affiliate library under the Madison Public Library (MPL), serves almost 270,000 residents in Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin, which lies west of Milwaukee. The Monroe Street 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 135,000 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, Monroe Street is only one of the eight branches, plus the central library, plus the Dream Bus, with a total aggregated visit of more than 2.1 million and more than 163,000 registered borrowers.