Local citizens will work with a University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) professor to collect an oral history of Anson.

Seventeen locals will interview and record Anson residents' stories about their lives. The interviews will be transcribed and archived at the Special Collections Library at UNCC and on the World Wide Web.

A steering committee will decide whom to interview.

Neil Jones will run point on the operation locally. On Friday, he helped brief interviewees about the project at the Hampton B. Allen Library.

The Special Collections Library exists to chronicle the region but has mostly focused on Mecklenburg County.

"We're interested in capturing the history of that greater area," assistant university librarian for Special Collections Katie McCormick said. Currently, the oral history section of the library contains approximately 2,000 interviews from citizens in the region.

McCormick also helped brief interviewees and explained how to use the recording equipment. She gave attendees a crash course on oral history.

"You're basically interpreting in writing what people say on tape," she said, explaining the account and the transcript could sound very different. People rarely speak in complete sentences.

"Part of your job is to pay attention and respect the person you're interviewing," she said. "When you get down to it, everybody has a story to tell."

McCormick advised them to ask open-ended questions and prompt people in order to jog their memories. She also cautioned against allowing subjects to read from a script.

"There's no worse interview," she said.

Jones said the goal was to capture "the fabric" of the county. He also had advice for interviewees.

"Keep it casual," he said. "Keep it friendly. Keep it easy."

The group will face some challenges. Aside from persuading subjects to be interviewed, they must also find the money to pay someone to transcribe the interviews.

McCormick described how oral history is used to help form a historical picture. Sometimes it is inaccurate but oral accounts can help supplement official documents, letters and newspaper stories of the times.

"When you put those together, you sort of triangulate the truth," she said.