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 Award Grapes of Wrath" and captures the writer's enduring legacy as an engaged and socially aware artist. From the 1930s on Steinbeck wrote about "the people," his heart open to the longing, loneliness, despair and triumph of those on the edges. Americans were his people, and his last book, "America and Americans" (1966) expresses his enduring love for a democratic nation. Thomas Steinbeck wrote that the awardee is a "planetary patriot," which means, a person who, in keeping with Maurice Steinbeck's understanding of the highest aspirations of an artist, "stands up against the stones of condemnation, and speaks for those who