Anonymous Patron writes “Have any archives ever been so interesting to so many people before?
The National Archives sent out a press release on the U.S. Newswire to announce that 500 pages of material from Department of Justice records have been processed for release. The records will be available on the internet, starting today. A reference set of the documents will be open for research at the National Archives College Park Facility.”
In short, yes!
I can think of a number of examples, such as the South African History Archive and when the files of the Stasi were made available to the public. A good book on the latter is Timothy Garton-Ash’s The File: A Personal History .