Context is the main thing here. If done right finding bits and pieces of text is a great way of letting the player puzzle a story together. Just giving it straight up in a menu is definitely lame as it sparks little interest for the player.

"Finding" is key here. If you find a piece of paper next to a bloodstain on the wall, on a corpse, or something else relevant to the content of the paper, yes that is awesome. Bioshock comes to mind.

Dark Souls does the same thing but even more minimalistic. Finding certain armor sets on corpses or in treasure chests in specific locations makes you link the environment to the character in question and lets you figure out what happened exactly. I LOVE IT