Chronicling the Story of a Activist-Curator Fellowship Program at the Free Library of Philadelphia

Program Evaluation
Written By Cathy Sigmond

Client: The Free Library of Philadelphia | Location: Philadelphia, PA | Funding: The Mellon Foundation and Pew Center for Arts & Heritage 

 
 

We used in-depth interviews and transcript review processes to understand the outcomes, successes, and challenges for the Free Library of Philadelphia's fellowship program, which was designed to strengthen relationships between activists and archives.

OVERVIEW

In 2022, we worked with the Free Library of Philadelphia to understand and document the processes, outcomes, successes, and challenges of the Library’s Chronicling Resistance project. Chronicling Resistance was an archival and exhibitions project, Fellowship program, and collaboration among the Fellows, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL). With funding from the Mellon Foundation and Pew Center for Arts & Cultural Heritage, the project sought to amplify stories of resistance in Philadelphia’s historic archival collections and strengthen relationships between archives and local, contemporary activists. 

Our summative evaluation served as a reflection tool to explore the impact of the pandemic on the fellowship, alignment between organization practices and fellowship goals, and ways for the Library and PACSCL to move forward in designing and implementing future community-based projects and exhibitions. 

APPROACH

To align the evaluation with fellows’ and staff needs, we designed an evaluation with three distinct but interrelated parts:

  • A Logic Model to articulate the goals, actions, and underlying assumptions of the fellowship

  • A series of in-depth virtual interviews with Chronicling Resistance fellows, Chronicling Resistance project members, Free Library staff, and PACSCL members; interviewees could review their transcripts and work with Kera researchers to clarify interpretations 

  • Interviews with community members who attended Chronicling Resistance’s culminating exhibition

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

Working with Chronicling Resistance project members, we found the logic model to be a helpful starting point for the evaluation. While the logic model was only used for evaluation purposes, it provided an overarching view of the project as originally planned (before the pandemic) and highlighted any underlying assumptions in program design, which the evaluation more deeply explored. 

Through in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders, we learned that while Chronicling Resistance was a laudable endeavor of the Free Library and PACSCL, transforming institutions and aligning project goals with community needs are ambitious tasks. Long-term, strategic, institutional change is required to make archives and libraries relevant institutions for community activists. Both organizations have key opportunities to reevaluate internal structures and apply Chronicling Resistance learnings to future community-based work.

Cathy Sigmond

Cathy brings many years of experience in education and experience design to her role as Head of Strategy at Kera Collective. 

Having previously worked in a variety of educational settings, Cathy is driven by her constant fascination and delight at how people make discoveries about the familiar and the unfamiliar. 

Cathy loves helping to shape experiences that spark curiosity and make a difference in people’s lives. She particularly enjoys the rapid, iterative nature of design-based research and the deep insights that come from qualitative research, especially on projects exploring interactions with the digital and built environments. 

Cathy shares her passion for experience design research widely and regularly guest lectures for graduate programs, including the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design Program and the Pratt Institute’s School of Information. Cathy served as the co-chair of the Museum Computer Network’s Human-Centered Design special interest group from 2018-2021.

Outside of work, you can usually find Cathy playing soccer, thrifting, or making her way through her large cookbook collection. 

Cathy’s favorite museum experiences are immersive; she will always vividly remember walking through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute, being surrounded by birds at the Peabody Essex Museum, and hearing centuries-old instruments come to life at the Museum of Musical Instruments. 

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