The Presbyterian Historical Society is pleased to welcome RNS Project Archivists Isabella Fidanza and Megan Genovese to the PHS staff. Isabella and Megan are part of the team digitizing the Religions News Service photographs.

Isabella (she/her) has a background in English, International Area Studies, and a M.A. in publishing. Driven by her deep appreciation for the arts and cultural sector, she has explored careers in museum public programming, academic libraries, and archives. She is currently pursuing a certificate in Digital Archives & Records Management from San Jose State University iSchool.

Since finishing a PhD in Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Megan has been working as a digitization specialist for Ancestry. She is excited to help catalogue and provide first-time digital access to a historically rich photo collection. 

Isabella and Megan’s work is part of Digitizing the Religious News Service Photograph Collection, 1945–1982, a 27-month National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant funded project that will digitize 22,500 images, newspaper clippings, and related documents from the Religious News Service Photograph Collection, and the rehousing of the entire collection of 60,000 photographs and accompanying materials. The two will work together to assess each photograph for historic value; digitize select images; create accompanying metadata, and rehouse the photo, negative, and any additional material for each record.

PHS Digital Collections Specialist Allison Davis is excited to welcome the new staff, “I am so thrilled to have Megan and Isabella on our team! They both bring a unique set of skills and genuine interest in the subject matter that I know they’re going to excel at this project. I can’t wait to get started on making this significant photograph collection available to a wider audience.”

Davis and PHS Director of Programs and Services Natalie Shilstut will oversee the digitization of these historic images, which will be added to Pearl Digital Collections over a two-and-a-half-year period.

Visit our blog to stay up-to-date on progress being made on the Digitizing the Religious News Service Photograph Collection, 1945-1982 project. Learn more about the NEH grant that is funding this work.