Edwin Mellen Press is suing our colleague Dale Askey (associate university librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton) twice, once alone and once with McMaster itself, for comments he made on his blog in 2010 about the quality of Edwin Mellen publications.

Dale Askey said in an email interview that it was "my job to assess the quality of books, and I did so based on many years of experience in the field... As a qualified and experienced librarian, I was sharing a professional opinion for consumption by peers."

Dale Askey has the freedom to comment on publishers and the quality of their publications. We librarians and archivists, members of the library chapter of the York University Faculty Association, fully support him in his exercise of academic freedom and freedom of speech.

Related links:

• Petition at change.org: Edwin Mellen Press: End libel suit against Dale Askey and McMaster University
• Notice of action in the suit (PDF)
• Unprecedented $3 million dollar lawsuit filed against McMaster librarian for blogpost (blog post from the Canadian Association for Professional Academic Librarians, bringing together a lot of links and information)
• Price of a Bad Review (article by Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed giving good coverage of the case so far)