Librarian Sued Over Blog Posts
March 11, 2013
Would you like to see another example about how blog posts can nip you in the rear? Over at Slashdot, a user posted “Publisher Sues University Librarian Over His Personal Blog Posts.” The post is simply about librarian Dale Askey expressing his opinion:
“’The Chronicle of Higher Education has the news that Herbert Richardson, founder of Edwin Mellen Press is suing McMaster University and University Librarian Dale Askey for $3 Million over Mr. Askey’s posts on a personal blog. In 2010 Mr. Askey wrote a blog post about Edwin Mellen Press on his personal Web site, Bibliobrary. Mr. Askey referred to the publisher as ‘dubious’ and said its books were often works of ‘second-class scholarship.’ For a few months afterward, several people chimed in the blog’s comments section, some agreeing with Mr. Askey, others arguing in support of the publisher. In a February 11 statement, the McMaster University Faculty Association (MUFA) stated that The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) ‘and the MUFA Executive agree that this case represents a serious threat to the freedom of academic librarians (pdf) to voice their professional judgment and to academic freedom more generally.'”
It does not appear that Askey did anything wrong other than post a critical review. If you read the entire article, the Richardson also claims that Askey made defamatory comments about his person. When is a person not allowed to voice an opinion. If movie executives and authors were afraid of every bad review we would not have any new movies or books. The same applies here. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Whitney Grace, March 11, 2013
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