It is a shock to hear that the Institute of Alcohol Studies plans to disperse
the important historical library of the United Kingdom Alliance.  When I first
worked in this library it was crammed into a tiny room dominated by a
duplicating room and consisted mostly of the Alliance miniute books.  The then
executive secretary proudly told me at that time that he had thrown out most
of the mass of books and pamhlets which had existed when he took over.  Since
then the Alliance has built of a considerable historical library.  For instance
it acquired the only complete set of the annual reports of the temperance
organization upon whose history I have spent much of my life, the Grand Lodge
of England, Good Templars.  From aged temperance advocates, the library also
acquired innumerable temperance books and pamphlets unrelated to the UKA.   If
the Institute of Alcohol Studies lacks room for this library I hope then that
it can go intact to a library that will make it available to researchers.
 
PS: I still recall another painful moment in my career.  At the end of a
summer in London I made a brief visit to an organization of licensed
victuallers (publicans) and saw among other things a complete run of its
"office books" from the 1830s which contained copies of everything that the
organization had produced in multiple copies.  Perhaps it was low grade ore
for the historian but it contained gold.  The next time I was back in England
the organization had moved to smaller quarters and the "office books" no longer
existed.