THERE WAS a lot of tutt‐tutting among librarians in January when the Times and the Guardian reported the breakup of the libraries of the miners' institutes. The philistine abandoning of these collections, and the unhappy involvement of some county libraries, led to much holier‐than‐thou headshaking in the profession. This would have been more convincing if it were librarians who had drawn attention to this deplorable state of affairs and were doing something to mitigate it. The salvage operation was, in fact, the inspiration of the sociologists of University College Swansea and whatever is rebuilt out of the shambles will be due to their efforts.