ACRL Board of Directors Statement on Edwin Mellen Press v. Dale Askey
The Board of Directors of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) expresses grave concern over the libel suit initiated by Edwin Mellen Press against Dale Askey, a librarian and faculty member at McMaster University. The suit alleges that Askey committed libel while criticizing the Press in his blog while a Librarian at Kansas State University. This action is a challenge to both academic and intellectual freedom in academic libraries.
If successful, it would not only be damaging to Askey personally but do great harm to the ability of all academic librarians to perform their professional duties. We trust that the Edwin Mellen Press will, in the light of growing outrage in the academic community, drop what appears to be an ill-considered assault upon free expression in general and academic librarians in particular.
- ACRL Board of Directors
Steve Locy:
February 20th, 2013 at 2:12 pm
boycott-that will get their attention
Steven J. Bell:
February 20th, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Before you call for a boycott, take a look at this post by Kevin Smith:
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/02/08/a-vexing-question/
Thomas Anthony Kelly:
February 21st, 2013 at 6:31 am
I find this whole debate to be nuts. Every book is a unique product. Some are good and some are poor. The actual publisher is no indication of quality. Every book needs to be judged on its individual merits. I know of some excellent books published by EMP which have had excellent reviews in leading scholarly journals.
Jennifer Boettcher:
February 21st, 2013 at 10:29 am
The issue I find outrageous is the nature of the lawsuit, being punished by expressing an opinion?
Where do honest reviews come from, if you can’t criticize?
Thank you for the support « The Bibliobrary:
February 21st, 2013 at 1:04 pm
[...] Association of College and Research Libraries [...]
Signs Taken for Wonders | Academic Librarian:
February 21st, 2013 at 5:15 pm
[...] the commentary on the Mellen/Askey case, I ran across a comment from the ACRL Board of Directors’ statement of support [...]
Publisher hits new low: Suing librarian for criticizing their books – Confessions of a Science Librarian:
February 23rd, 2013 at 3:43 pm
[...] ACRL Board of Directors Statement on Edwin Mellen Press v. Dale Askey by Steven J. [...]
John Jackson:
February 26th, 2013 at 11:42 am
First of all, this comment by Thomas Kelley (word for word) has been left on a number of other sites and is obviously a poorly veiled attempt by Mellon P to validate itself. Secondly, I am a librarian and have an advanced degree in Information Science (among other things) and thus I *AM* qualified to make judgments about academic books: it is part of the education that every librarian (esp. at an academic library) must go through. I have entire books on how to assess the quality of academic literature, if you’re interested, and yes, the publisher can be one (of many) factors to be considered.
“Dale Askey” support statement from Librarians-In-Council « WLUFA:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:15 am
[...] Laurier Librarians of WLUFA urge Edwin Mellen Press to drop any remaining suits, as OCUL, CLA, ACRL, and many individual libraries have done already. We hope others in the publishing community will [...]