News: An Open Secret exhibition

This exhibition runs from 28 September 2009 to 30 June 2010, Monday to Friday, 09.00– 16.30 and is located in the reception area of West Register House, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. Admission is free.

The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) is the record keeper for Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. The organisation is headed by the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, whose antecedents date back to the 13th century: Its archive holdings extend to almost 70 kilometres of records reflecting over 800 years of Scotland's history.

In an era of freedom of information, government records are more freely available to the Scottish public than ever before. Reaching this position of greater openness and unlocking government information has been a long and difficult process. Secrecy and governance were viewed as one and the same. Archives were seen as containing dusty documents whose secrets never saw the light of day.

Drawing on significant documents from the 15th century to the very recent past, this exhibition reflects how government attitudes changed over time. It shows how successive governments initially sought to keep information secret and from the public gaze, while later recognising the need to satisfy increasing public demand for freer access. It covers changes in legislation, attitudes of politicians and government officials, as well as shifts in the public mood. All contributed towards Freedom of Information legislation in 2002.

One of the exhibits is a Scottish parliamentary record from 1488 which gave rise to a medieval conspiracy theory: read more about the mysterious death of King James III.

Another exhibit concerns a futuristic 1930s high-speed monorial system, whose prototype was tested in Milngavie but was never built commercially. Read more about the George Bennie Railplane.