The Massachusetts Center for the Book is the Commonwealth's affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
The Massachusetts Center works with the National Center and in the network of state-center affiliates across the country to promote "books, reading, literacy and libraries."
The Massachusetts Center hosts at its website the "Literary Map of Massachusetts," a cultural tourism guide to literary heritage sites in Massachusetts. It sponsors an annual student writing program, Letters About Literature, and it recognizes important contemporary work by Massachusetts authors or about Massachusetts subjects with its annual Massachusetts Book Award.
Recipients of the annual MassBook award from 2000 to 2010 have included Eric Carle, Louise Glück, Alice Hoffman, Stanley Kunitz, Dennis Lehane, Moying Li, Lois Lowry, Megan Marshall, Roland Merullo, Nathaniel Philbrick, Jayne Anne Phillips and John Pipkin, among many others.