The Shanghai Archives Museum Friday made 26,838 volumes of archived documents available to the public, including many memos written about government meetings when foreign powers settled in the city.

"These archives, dating back from 1849 to 1943, are very valuable for the study of the city's modern history," said Liu Nanshan, curator of the museum.

He noted that many of the documents were written in foreign languages.

About half of the 60,000 volumes of foreign language archives kept in the local archives bureau have been appraised and made public since 1987 when the local archives administration law was enacted.

The new batch of archives also features documents and memos about local urban construction projects such as construction blueprints and statutes on land use during the foreign settlement period.

They include a construction blueprint from the former French concession for Avenue Joffre, now known as Huaihai Road.

An index of the accessible archives is listed at the museum's Website (www.archives.sh.cn) in both Chinese and English.

(Shanghai Daily July 10, 2004)