A Reference instructional Guide for Densho.org

1. A Reference Instructional Guide

2. • DENSHO is a nonprofit organization that is determined to preserve the history and stories of
Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated throughout the course of World War Two
• DENSHO provides access to oral histories, historical photographs, documents, newspapers and
more from those who lived through the era, while also providing a detailed and regularly updated
encyclopedia on the events, locations, and life experiences from the time period
• This site is utilized by both students and educators alike in order to further expand their knowledge
on the time period and experiences of Japanese Americans

3. • Densho.org can be accessed by any computer that has internet access
• No login information is necessary
• Simply open your preferred search engine and directly type in the URL of
https://densho.org/ or directly click the link from the provided PowerPoint
• To directly visit the Encyclopedia: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/
• To directly visit the Digital Archive: https://ddr.densho.org/

4. • Discover what life was like for Japanese Americans during WW2 within each state
• Hear stories of the experiences from individuals who lived through the time
• View photographs, newspapers, and other documents from the time
• Search for particular events from the war
• Search for information related to particular concentration camps
• Browse through topics related to life and work within the camps
• Browse through newspapers made directly at the camps

5. • The Encyclopedia is arranged within a table
of contents in alphabetical order
• Individual entries have their information in
chronological order
• Include direct links to items within the digital
archive that are related to the topic
• Entries are regularly being updated and
added to the encyclopedia
ENCYCLOPEDIA DIGITAL ARCHIVE
• The archive is arranged by item or topic
• Every topic contains a brief overview, that
include a link to its corresponding
encyclopedia entry
• Contains all related photographs, documents,
oral histories, and newspapers in a gallery
view that can be further filtered
• Artifacts, photographs, and documents are
being add to this system regularly

6. There are two ways that you can search the DENSHO Encyclopedia:
• By directly searching the event, location, or person into the search bar
• Browsing through the encyclopedia’s Table of Contents

7. For example, if we were looking for information on the events of Pearl Harbor (December
7, 1941), we would simply type Pearl Harbor into the search bar
Which is
located
right here

8. From here you will click on the Encyclopedia entry that you were looking for, and it
will take you directly to the entry
So in this instance
we would click on
this article to find
information on Pearl
Harbor

9. Once you find the page you need, you can further explore the encyclopedia by clicking on the
highlighted words to take you to other pages, or by clicking on the more info under the photographs to
explore the event within the archive

10. You may also search for items within the Encyclopedia by using the table of contents, in which you can
find your topic and go directly to the page that way
If we were looking for Pearl Harbor, we
would go directly through the link on
December 7, 1941

11. There are two ways in which you can search through the digital archive:
• You can directly search a topic through the search function
• You can browse through a list of topics, by Collection, by Facility, or by Narrator

12. For example, if I wanted to find artifacts and documents related to weddings held within the
Concentration Camps, I would begin by searching weddings directly into the search bar

13. From there, you can further filter your results:
• Topics will filter your search through the main topics, like weddings in Washington, or
weddings associated with the Japanese Citizens League
• Facilities will filter your search
for results from a particular
facility, such as weddings held
at the Santa Anita facility
• Format will allow you to see
which type of artifact you
would like to see
• Genre will further filter the type
of artifact that you would like
to see
• Usage is related to the
copyrights of the images and
content

14. Your results will provide
you with a series of
artifacts that you can click
on and find more
information about it

15. There are multiple ways to browse the digital archive:
• Narrators will provide you with oral histories and personal experiences
• Collections will allow
you to browse
materials by the
donor or content
• Topics will allow you
to browse through a
list of detailed topics
• Facilities will allow you
to directly browse
through the different
facilities and their
related artifacts

16. I’d recommend browsing by topic, for it is the most straight forward means of browsing. Once you have
found your topic you can further filter your artifacts using the filters that were mentioned in the searching
example
From this gallery, you may
find individual items, that
will provide you with more
information on the topic

17. Molly Hart
702 Instructional Presentation
12/3/2021

18. Densho. (2021, November 18). Japanese American incarceration and Japanese internment.
Densho. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://densho.org/.