In 2000, the state library system had a total of 18 million volumes and circulation of 46 million. The Milwaukee Public Library, founded in 1878, maintained 12 branches and had 2,504,461 bound volumes as of 1998; the Madison Public Library had seven branches and over 815,686 volumes. The largest academic library is that of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, with six million bound volumes. The best-known special library is that of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, with 3.6 million books and over 60,000 cu ft (1,700 cu m) of government publications and documents. Total public library income in 2000 was $156,649,000, including $5.3 million in state grants.
Wisconsin had 208 museums and historical sites in 2000. The State Historical Society maintains a historical museum in Madison and other historical sites and museums around the state. The Milwaukee Public Museum contains collections on history, natural history, and art. The Milwaukee Art Center, founded in 1888, a major museum of the visual arts, emphasizes European works of the 17th to 19th centuries. The Madison Art Center, founded in 1901, has European, Japanese, Mexican, and American paintings and sculpture, as well as 17th-century Flemish tapestries. The Charles Allis Art Library in Milwaukee, founded in 1947, houses collections of Chinese porcelains, French antiques, and 19th-century American landscape paintings. Other leading art museums include the Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison and the Theodore Lyman Wright Art Center at Beloit College.
The Circus World Museum at Baraboo occupies the site of the original Ringling Brothers Circus. Other museums of special interest include the Dard Hunter Paper Museum (Appleton), the National Railroad Museum (Green Bay), and the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame. More than 500 species of animals are on exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoological Park; Madison and Racine also have zoos. Historical sites in Wisconsin include Villa Louis, a fur trader's mansion at Prairie du Chien; the Old Wade House in Greenbush; Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor ethnic museum near Eagle; Pendarvis, focusing on lead mining at Mineral Point; and the Taliesin estate of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in Spring Green.