John Steinbeck Library John Steinbeck Library The John Steinbeck Library is a public library in Salinas, California. The library was named after writer John Steinbeck in 1969. The library held the Steinbeck archives until 1998 when they were transferred to the new National Steinbeck Center. The library made national headlines in 2004 and 2005 when it, along with the two other libraries in Salinas, were on the verge of closing because of insufficient funding. In 2005, a nationally covered read-in drew citizens as well as authors to the library to raise awareness about the potential closure. This national publicity, as well as private
John Steinbeck who would go on to write a classic early textbook on ecology. Ricketts became a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man was only one part of a great chain of being, caught in a web of life too large for him to control or understand. Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges. Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began working at the lab as secretary-bookkeeper. Steinbeck helped on an informal basis.