Librarian Faces Publisher's Wrath (and Defamation Suit)

The Edwin Mellen Press has brought a defamation suit against Dale Askey over statements Mr. Askey made in a post on his own blog in September 2010. Among those comments was one particularly vivid one, that the Press is "a dubious publisher." Mr. Askey, currently a librarian at McMaster University, says he was commenting as a librarian on the quality of Edwin Mellen Press titles, in the area of philosophy. There's more, of course, which you can read in this story published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Press has now filed its suit in an Ontario court. Here's more commentary at Leiter's blog, here from Inside Higher Education, and at the Academic Librarian, which has a link to the actual complaint.