As a part of our #Somerville175 celebration we want to preserve the stories of Somerville residents. A kickoff for this Storytelling Series is coming up on Thursday, February 2, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the main branch of the Somerville Public Library (MA), 79 Highland Ave. 
At the kickoff you can find out how historians collect and use oral histories and hear from Dara Baker, Head Archivist of the Naval Historical Collection at the U.S. Naval War College, about how oral histories compliment other records in studying the past. Nadia Dixson, Archivist at the City of Somerville Archives, will also discuss how historians came to use oral histories to capture what traditional sources don’t tell us.