TKRN Toolkit
TK Reite Notebooks is a toolkit for documenting and transmitting traditional knowledge to future generations. The essence is indigenous self-determination over knowledge.
The toolkit combines digital technologies and paper.
It is low cost, simple to use and can be easily adapted for different communities and languages.
The toolkit was co-designed with Reite villagers from madang Province in Papua New Guinea, with support from The Christensen Fund.
Versions : English | Tok Pisin | Bislama
Access all PDF Notebook templates here
Download a short version of the toolkit here (PDF)
Download Full Toolkit Instructions here (PDF)
The Toolkit below is divided into 3 Sections: Making; Sharing & Technical.
MAKING |
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What you need:
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| What to do: | Why? |
| 1. Identify the people who you will work with, and discuss the possibility of documenting Traditional Knowledge through this toolkit. Discuss what they might like to document, and what the value of recording it will be for them. | The toolkit support people who want to document, preserve, and/or transmit aspects of their traditions or knowledge. It is for them to decide how they will use it. If you are collaborating with a community of group, it is vital to agree on fundamental aspects such as who will be involved, who will benefit, and who will have control over, and ownership of, the results |
| 2. Make it clear that participation is voluntary, and that there are ways of restricting content built into the process. (You may use the engaged consent model developed with Reite Villagers) | It is crucial that everyone involved in the process understands certain things about it, and has a chance to consider others:
a. it is voluntary. |
| 3. Choose from notebook templates available here, or design you own. | Notebook templates have been designed in Tok Pisin, in Bislama, and in English. They are of various lengths, and with different prompts and guidance. You can choose one or more of these as suitable to your requirements. Alternatively, using bookleteer, anyone can design and create their own blank notebooks in different languages, for different contexts, or with different communities. |
| 4. Print the number of notebooks that you think you will use. Depending on conditions and resources, you might choose to use a waterproof paper instead of standard office paper. Keep the pages together in the same order they come out of the printer. Make sure people have enough scissors to make up the notebooks. |
The toolkit is based around the use of these notebooks. People use them to document anything they choose. Waterproof paper (e.g. Aquascribe) is more durable in humid environments.The PDF files print out the pages of the notebooks in the correct order. Shuffling the pages around will mean they might not be folded into notebooks successfully.Scissors are necessary to make up the notebooks from the printed sheets of paper. (You may have to supply these.) |
| 5. Organise public meetings or private discussions with the participants to demonstrate how to make and fold the notebooks
Discuss how people could use them, and the different kinds of content they might like to enter into them. This is to enable people to understand the notebooks and how they can use the notebooks and how they could write, draw, or add other kinds of content to them. (You may like to show some examples of completed notebooks that have been made by other communities as examples.) |
It is very important that participants fold, cut and make their own notebooks. Learning to fold notebooks engages people and offers ownership of a key part of the process. There is also a sense of achievement in making one’s own notebooks. People who have learned to fold the notebooks can teach others, or assist in folding workshops. In a large-scale documentation process, this also means one or two people are freed from making up multiple notebooks.
People should choose their own content. Meetings are an opportunity for people to co-operatively decide what is appropriate to record and how the process should be organised. They help people take control over their own documentation project. It is also doing things together: a common activity which motivates people to engage with each other and think about different types of Traditional Knowledge. Meetings make it possible to discuss concerns, and head off disputes over what should or should not be recorded before the notebooks are filled in. Things to keep in mind are:
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| 6. Personalise the notebooks. Take a photograph of each person or group of people who will fill out a notebook. Print the photograph out and stick it on the front cover. Ask them to write their name(s) after the engaged consent statement. |
The photograph serves to identify the authors, to personalise the notebooks, and gives people an extra impetus to complete them. It also makes whatever is recorded there associated with this person and therefore keeps knowledge attached to people. |
| 7. Ask if they wish to delete any of the lines on the engaged consent statement. Double check that they understand and agree to the statements. | The engaged consent statement is a simple way to get people to think about what they record. Its asks them to think how willing they are for it to be seen by other people. This is important for several reasons, including taking ownership of the documentation process, controlling the circulation of the notebooks, and considering the nature of, and restrictions on, knowledge before making it public. In order to feel confident that they will retain control over the content it is vital to remind people that they are making these notebooks for themselves and for those they wish to pass things on to. Make it clear that they can restrict the circulation of the notebooks completely if they wish. This reminds them they are not being asked to record things for outsiders but that, if they are willing, other people can be given access to their notebooks they make. |
| 8. Make sure participants have writing and drawing materials. Distribute pens and pencils if necessary. | |
| 9. Remind people to be as full and complete in their documentation as possible. Encourage people to use all the space available, and to use drawing, images, photographs etc. as well as words. Its is possible to make longer documents by using more than one notebook with numbers indicating the order in which they should be read. |
People often assume a lot of background knowledge, or take for granted that the reader already knows the content. Ask them to consider what they would like their grandchildren’s grandchildren to know if they had never been in the village/area etc.. Suggest people give enough information so that someone with no knowledge of a plant or process or story could identify it, or follow it properly. |
| 10. Agree on a day and time when the completed notebooks will be returned for scanning (if required). | This encourages completion. Some participants will be enthusiastic and wish to complete multiple notebooks. Others may be shy of their ability and need a deadline to complete the work. |
| 11. Be available and encourage questions and concerns to be shared while people are in filling out the notebooks. Respond positively to new ideas for content, or to suggestions about what people would like to document. |
This means people who become confused, or lose confidence in what they are doing, will not just drop out of the process. People are often shy or feel ashamed to document obvious material. Participation can be more important that what is actually recorded. |
| 12. Digitise the completed notebooks. First confirm consent to scan and/or share online by giving people another chance to modify the consent statements on the front of the notebooks. Unfold the booklets, scan the individual pages as either jpeg images or PDF pages. Collate all the scanned pages for each individual notebooks into a single PDF file, and give it an appropriate file name. |
Digitising the notebooks will allow them to be archived and shared, or printed out again if the original is lost or damaged. Scanned notebooks are permanent records and can be the basis for a library of local knowledge and practices. |
| 13. Put each notebook back together and return it to its author. | Immediately returning the notebooks is an important way to keep the documentation with participants, and can be reassuring for them. |
SHARING |
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| 14. Share files via removable media. Copy files to USB flash drives, or microSD cards of people involved in the project. Alternatively, each scanned notebook should be small enough to email.
15. For those with sustained access to the internet, we recommend building a simple website which can act as archive of uploaded PDFs of the notebooks. Visit the online library website created for Reite village for inspiration and ideas. Websites can either be open or private. 16. Print out copies of the notebooks, fold and make them up for the establishment of a library of physical copies of the notebooks. This might be hosted by a local school, community centre or institution. |
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TECHNICAL |
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The project only uses freely available digital and paper technologies. The most basic tools required are pens, paper and scissors, with various digital technologies adding increased capabilities at different levels :
Creating New Notebooks Making Up Notebooks Paper Stock Adding Images Scanning & Printing Sharing & Distribution Another simple sharing method is to copy PDF files of scanned notebooks onto cheap USB flash drives or MicroSD cards which can typically store thousands of files. Power & Light We tested a range of solar lights in the village and recommend these : Sun King Pro All Night (via SolarAid in the UK) and the Nokero N182 Solar Light Bulb. |
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The toolkit is licensed under Creative Commons.
