Your Daily Guide

📚 Madison Library’s Online System Getting an Upgrade

• Book lovers, you might want to reserve those spring reads now. The Madison Public Library’s online catalog and user interface, known as LINKCat, will be offline from April 12 through April 16 for upgrades and improvements.
• When it comes back up on April 17, readers won’t notice a major change in how they reserve books online or check to see what books are at what libraries. But the interface will be sleeker, and library officials say the changes will allow them to offer more features and innovations in the future. [Cap Times]

👷 Construction Starts on Two New Schools

• Ground broke Monday on two new school projects funded by a $507 million capital referendum approved by voters in 2024.
• The first project is a new $85 million school building for Sherman Middle School and Shabazz High School, while the other is a new $94 million school for Black Hawk Middle School and Gompers Elementary. Both sites are expected to be open in time for the 2028-29 school year.
• In all, the money from the referendum will be used to build or renovate 10 schools across seven sites in the Madison Metropolitan School District. [ 🔒WSJ, MMSD]

🗳️ Early Voting Down So Far in Spring Election

• Based on the number of absentee ballots cast so far for the April 7 spring election, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between appeals court judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor isn’t attracting the same heat as previous contests.
• On Monday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission reported that 146,583 absentee ballots had been returned so far. That’s about 112,000 ballots less than were returned at this same point in the 2025 election, when Justice Susan Crawford won over Brad Schimel in a race that determined the balance of power on the 4-3 court. In a Marquette Law School poll released last week, Taylor was up over Lazar 23% to 17%, but another 53% of respondents were still undecided.
• 🎧 Need help making your choice? On the City Cast Madison podcast today, the Democrat-backed Taylor talks to host Bianca Martin about her qualifications for the state’s highest court. Make sure you also listen to our interview earlier this week with the Republican-backed Lazar. Then make sure to vote! [WPR, Marquette Today, 🎧 City Cast Madison]