The California Legacy Project, started in Spring 2000, is a project designed to bring awareness for contemporary readers in California who think we have a dead culture.  This project is meant to prove that we do in fact have a “diverse and lively literary and historical heritage.”  As a result of wanting the same goal, Santa Clara University has teamed up with Heyday and has created the California Legacy Series.  These series, which now have more than forty printed books each strive towards the same goal of raising “public awareness and appreciation for our state’s cultural legacy and to encourage faculty and students in their creative and scholarly interest in Californian culture.”  Throughout the years, the project has also gone as far as to include public radio programs, a website, and new partnerships on top of continuing to print books.   This project firmly believes in bringing awareness and striving towards a “California Legacy for a digital age.”

 
The project as a whole is remarkable!  It includes media galleries, projects such as radio production, and even “The Big Read,” which offers communities the opportunity to come together to read, discuss, and celebrate American and world literature.  This project also includes connections to the SCU English Department, the SCU College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for California Studies, the Center for Sierra Nevada Studies, the Inlandia Institute, and KAZU 90.3 FM radio.

 
While exploring the website, I listened to a few of their “radio scripts” (podcasts) on books that captured the culture of California.  One radio script I listened to talked about Gelett Burgess’ book, “A Gage of Youth.”  While listening to this radio script, (which actually read a bit differently than what was written on the site,) I found it was interesting to hear the introduction for “Ballad of the Hyde Street Grip.”  In the beginning, there was a portion that was read by Terry Beers, the Director and Series Editor of the project.  In the background was some fun and lighthearted music, while he briefly introduced the book.  After that, there was an excerpt from the book which was read by another individual, Kevin Hearle.  At the end of the excerpt, the lighthearted background music started up again, and Beers finished the radio script with a last bit of information about the author, and finally concluded with giving a citation and reference to the California Legacy Project and SCU.

 
After listening to that radio script, I listened to a few more and was definitely interested not only in the references to the books (which weaved and painted pictures of my head of the fantastic beauty of the California culture, molded by cable cars and whimsical three-eyed “Goops,”) but was especially interested in the format of how the podcast was made.  I was interested in looking into examples of the format of podcasts so that I can integrate some of what these examples do in their podcasts, to my own.  Other radio scripts that I listened to while exploring the site included “Purple Cows” (from “The Burgess Nonsense Book,) and “Table Manners and Window-Smoochers” (from “The Goops and How to Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both by Precept and Example, with Ninety Drawings”).  Similarly to the format of the radio script for the “Ballad of the Hyde Street Grip,”  these two radio scripts also featured a short introduction with lighthearted music playing in the background (all by Terry Beers), and then an excerpt read by a reader (Jessica Teeter for both “Purple Cows” and “Table Manners and Window-Smoochers), as well as a short ending with background music again by Beers.

 
From these radio scripts, I not only learned more about the California Legacy Project and more about California’s intricate and amazing culture, but I have also gained some insight into how I plan to possibly integrate some background music, an introduction, and ending to my podcast.