Te Pūtē Routiriata / Kete Taranaki Reo
He Whakamārama
Te Pūtē Routiriata o Taranaki - Kete Taranaki Reo is a community digital archive of Taranaki Whānui, and archival work it undertakes. This initiative is one of four areas identified in the Taranaki Māori Language Strategy 2005-2015, as critical to revitalising Taranaki Reo, the Taranaki regional dialect of Māori Language. see: http://www.taranakireo.co.nz.
Iwi, hapū, whānau, community organisations, institutions and government agencies are involved in this kaupapa. Representatives from these groups make up the Governance Committee and Project Team responsible for establishing, directing and operating the archive. Volunteer input from people in the community is essential to preparing material for inclusion. People accessing this archive via the internet are welcome to participate in broadening its knowledge base by contributing feedback, information, images, etc
This digital archive houses treasured aspects of Taranaki Māori identity. Initially, Te Pūtē Routiriata o Taranaki was to be a CD-ROM-based collection of examples of Taranaki Reo. However promotion, research and development of the initiative have paved the way for accessing this collection via the internet, and including material on several aspects of Taranaki Māori identity, not only Taranaki Reo.
Two objectives are central to the success of Te Pūtē Routiriata:
- protecting iwi, hapū, whānau and individual cultural and intellectual property rights
- facilitating increased access to material featuring (characteristics of) Taranaki Reo
Potential conflict can arise in upholding both these objectives, so how can easier access be achieved while assuring contributing Māori community that their rights over their information will be recognised. The solution lies in supporting and ensuring iwi, hapū, whānau and individuals maintain management and control of their restricted information for their own communities in private sections (kete) of the archive, while promoting and enabling easy access to open, unrestricted material in shared kete.
To achieve this, numerous kete with different levels of permissions (access) make up the archive. Some have unrestricted access while others are available to certain groups only. Each group appoints an administrator for their kete. The administrator manages membership of their group - i.e. managing passwords for those who are permitted to access and/or contribute to the kete. There is also a moderator who assesses and edits material before it goes into the kete, and monitors use of the kete by users.
It is important that administrators and moderators are selected wisely and that all members of the group abide by the House Rules.
Who Is involved in Te Pūtē Routiriata / Kete Taranaki Reo?
CONCEPTION: Kete Software and its application to community digital archvies was the subject of a presentation at the 2006 National Digital Forum, in Wellington, (See below for an outline of the original Kete Installation). Discussions between Joann Ransom of Kete Horowhenua and Te Reo o Taranaki followed, exploring the potential of Kete Software to meet the needs of Māori community of Taranaki Whānui in establishing and managing a community digital archive of Taranaki Reo and Taranaki Māori identity. This is the result...
THE PARTNERS: To date, Te Reo o Taranaki has partnered with Ngāti Mutunga, Te Kāhui o Rauru, Te Korimako o Taranaki 94.8 FM, and Puke Ariki in this project. Promotion of this kaupapa to other iwi, hapū whānau and Taranaki Māori community groups continues.
FUNDERS: The Community Partnership Fund, under the National Digital Strategy, administered by the Department of Internal Affairs, has provided a significant proportion of the development funding thus far. This is being supplemented by contributions in-kind of our Partners and Stakeholders.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS: Walter McGinnis (lead developer), and the rest of the crew at Katipo Communications.
CONTENT MANAGER: to be advised
WORKERS: Hours of voluntary work from the community in preparing digital content.
COMMUNITY GROUPS: Te Pou Tiringa, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Pihipihinga Kakano mai i Rangiātea, Te Ihi Tū, Tihi Ltd and Te Ataarangi ki Taranaki are the principal Māori community organisations providing facilities, ringaringa and waewae to ensure contributed taonga kōrero are digitised and loaded into the archive. We are very grateful to them for their support, and look forward to calling on them in the near future.
Briefly, the four critical areas identified in 'Taranaki Māori Language Strategy 2005-2015' are:
Application: fostering environments where Taranaki reo is sustained;
Awareness: promoting high-level language awareness about revitalising Taranaki reo;
Acquisition: training in high-level language proficiency; and
Archive: gathering and documenting language that distinguishes Taranaki Reo;
About Kete - the original Kete installation
Kete Horowhenua, the original Kete installlation, is a community built digital library of arts, cultural and heritage resources for and about Horowhenua, New Zealand. Horowhenua Library Trust are responsible for the creation and ongoing development of the site.
Kete aims to get privately owned papers and photographs out from under beds and sitting alongside public archive and photograph collections. But we want so much more too. We want to capture the memories and stories that are our heritage, we want a place where our artists can showcase their work, and where our businesses and attractions can promote themselves, where we can celebrate who we are and how we live and what we do through photographs, video and audio footage and stories.
What we want is a vibrant and lively community of Kete users adding value to the site: joining together related photographs and clips and documents by writing and submitting an article or story; a story that others can add their own memories and knowledge to as well.
Kete was developed with Ruby on Rails, utilizes Zebra z39.50 full text indexing engine developed by IndexData, is fully compatible with Koha, and will be released under a GNU General Public License (GPL). The Kete software is available for download and we invite other communities to build their own Kete.
This Horowhenua Library Trust project is carried out in partnership with Horowhenua District Council and Levin SeniorNet, and was funded from the National Digital Strategy : Community Partnership Fund.
You can read more about Kete and what we're trying to do at http://blog.kete.net.nz
THE FUTURE -
Our aim is to bring Kete to the world! We are seeking funding to do the following:
- Build a release of the code (minus all the Horowhenua customizations) that can be downloaded, installed and configured using a web based wizard to step newbies through the process, thus allowing a unique Kete installation.
- Develop a prototype for skins or themes to allow a customized installation reflecting an organisations culture or style.
- Establish a kete.net community site for developers and users.
If you are interested in helping with further development (especially with cash!) then please contact us.
Who is involved in Kete?
Conception: Kete was the bright idea of Joann Ransom, Deputy Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust and Kete Project Manager.
Partners: Horowhenua Library Trust have partnered with Horowhenua District Council and Levin SeniorNet for this project.
Funders: The National Digital Strategy : Community Partnerships Fund provided the bulk of the development funding, supplemented by Horowhenua Library Trust, Horowhenua District Growers Association and Horowhenua District Council. Ross McColl Cars have provided us with transport whenever we have needed it, and Horowhenua College with a computer suite
Developers: Walter McGinnis (Lead Developer), Russell Garlick (Information Architect) Robert Lyon (Web Programmer), and the rest of the crew at Katipo Communications.
Content Manager: Pippa Coard has worked full time for nine months coordinating the collection of content, and managing volunteers.
Workers: We asked for help and boy did we get it! We have had thousands of hours of voluntary labour gifted to us by individuals in the community preparing digital content.
Community groups: Horowhenua and Foxton historical societies have provided the bulk of the seed collection, and Lorraine and Chris Wright from the Levin branch of NZ Society of Genealogists have created databases for bulk import.
About Kete by admin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License
