Sharing the Histories of Interned Japanese Americans

Geoff Froh has been working on web-related technologies almost since most of us knew there were websites to view.  “But I didn’t have a technology background,” he says. “My degree is in social science and I had thought about going into academia, probably teaching in Japanese Studies.”  After graduating from the University of Virginia, Geoff went to work in Washington, D.C. for an organization that focused on Japanese culture. “We were putting up a website in the early 1990’s, when it was a new thing to do,”  Froh recalls. “No one knew how, we learned as we went along.”

Froh moved to Seattle to work for the Japan America Society of the State of Washington.  Since then he’s provided information technology support and expertise for several local non-profits.  Then Tom Ikeda, executive director of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, recruited Froh to improve the accessibility of Densho’s archives with updated technology.

Densho, an award-winning Seattle-based nonprofit that documents the oral histories of Japanese Americans interred during World War II, has been using video kiosks to share these important personal histories with the public.  Ikeda wanted to make them available on the web.  “Seeing it from an iSchool perspective now, Densho is actually very LIS-oriented,” Froh explains. “We’re about organizing this great information and making it accessible.”

“Over the course of my career, I’ve been gradually accumulating bits of information and experience, but I wanted to take a step back,” he explains. Once Froh decided he needed to know what he describes as the“theoretical underpinnings” of his work, he looked at several options.  “The computer science programs were actually too technical, while the MBA programs were too business oriented to apply to the non-profit world,” Froh recalls.  “Something was missing, some sense of the bigger purpose of technology.  The Information Management program was interdisciplinary and talked about how the technical and social tie together.  That’s exactly what I needed.” 

Although adding the Executive MSIM Program to his schedule isn’t easy, Geoff feels it’s already paying off.  “We’re using ideas from my classes on a daily basis at Densho.  The metadata classes, for example, have helped me become much more explicit about how and why we index and classify our digital archives,”  he says.

The structure of the program and the closeness of each year’s cohort also have been beneficial for Froh.  “It’s a lot like working at a small start-up,” he says. “You’re doing focused, intense work among small groups and you really bond over the work.” To see the work Geoff is doing at Densho, visit their website at http://www.densho.org/ .