The Audiologists' Desk Reference was conceived in a bar in San Diego where good friend and colleague Gus Mueller and I were relaxing at after a tough day at the AAA Convention. Frustrated by the challenge of trying to find audiology tidbits that never seemed to be available when we needed it, we developed the idea of a compendium of audiology information for the busy clinician. Kind of like an audiology version of the well known Physician's Desk Reference, or PDR. We pitched the idea to a few publishers who clearly didn't share our enthusiasm.
A year or so later, at another bar in Colorado, we outlined on a napkin a table of contents for the potential book, and actually came up with the name Audiologists' Desk Reference, or ADR for short. We caught the interest of Dr. Singh with a rather formal presentation of the idea for a book, complete with a now carefully typed table of contents and a little shameful self-promotion. Work on the book didn't take place regularly, or really at all. Gus and I were too busy making a living to break away for a little writing time. Correctly asserting to Dr. Singh that the book was going nowhere, despite our enthusiasm, we begged for an advance payment to hire students to assist in our researching the book. The research was critical because the book was simply a compilation of audiology information. Once the data were in hand, we could organize it rather quickly. Despite our efforts during a few long but fun-filled weekends working on the book in Tennessee, we were more than 2 years past the contract deadline and still only about half way through the project. But we had a plan. After one of the marathon work weekends, I called Dr. Singh and hesitantly proposed a two book series. The first book would be mostly diagnostic information, whereas the follow up book would focus on rehabilitation, hearing aids, hearing conservation, and non-diagnostic topics. Although naively I never imagined he would go for (fall for) this scheme, Dr. Singh thought it was a brilliant idea ... selling two books instead of one.
ADR Volume I appeared in 1987, buying us some time to work on the second volume. Once the project gathered some momentum, and we could pay students a pittance to spend time copying facts and scraps of audiology information, we made good progress on Volume II. Unfortunately, during the rather long time period between announcement of the book and its actual publication (we're talking years), another publisher came out with a book series with the remarkably similar title Audiology Desk Reference, edited by a well known audiologist. Nonetheless, the overall the experience of preparing a comprehensive compilation of audiology knowledge with a good friend was enjoyable. As a postscript, I should point out that excitement about the two volume ADR is greatest outside the borders of the USA. Most emails we receive about the books, and requests for autographs when we're on the road, arise from audiologists somewhere else in the world.
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James W. Hall III - jwhall3phd@gmail.com