All Joking Aside

Last March, I received an unusual email. It came to the Press’s general mailbox and was passed around until it landed on my desk. The email was from a high school student on a speech and debate team who was preparing a performance on Hollywood’s misrepresentation of people of color.

 In her presentation, the student wanted to use a reference to a performance by the comedian W. Kamau Bell that appeared in our book All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents by Rebecca Krefting. She wasn’t looking for permission, but she needed someone to check a single footnote in the book. This might be a regular task for a reference librarian, but not one an editorial director does very often. Still, I was intrigued that a high school student was doing research with a Hopkins book. I had a copy in my office and was able to confirm the source for her.

She also needed a copy of the actual book. Apparently, the rules of the National Speech and Debate Association are clear: the student must be prepared to produce a published copy of the original source for any item used as evidence. It would have been easy for me to point her to an online retailer where she could buy the book or suggest she turn to interlibrary loan at her public high school. Easier still was to shove my shelf-worn copy of the book into an envelope and send it to her. It was my good deed for the day, and I didn’t think any more about it.

Five months later, I received an email from her: “I again wanted to thank you so much for your help in getting me the book. I'm happy to let you know that I won the National Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. The best part was being able to spread the message.”

In scholarly publishing we rarely ever know the true impact of our work, who reads our books, and whose lives are changed by them. Every once in a while, we do get a glimpse, and I want to share this one with you. Indeed, the best part is being able to spread the message.

I’ll give National Speech and Debate Champion Ariaki Dandawate the final word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_p9RuDO-Bk

Greg Britton is Editorial Director at the Johns Hopkins University Press. You can follow him on Twitter at @gmbritton.