Edwin Mellen Press

Edwin Mellen Press

Founded	1972
Founder	Herbert Richardson (Publisher)
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Lewiston, New York
Publication types	Books
Official website	www.mellenpress.com

The Edwin Mellen Press is a Lewiston, New York-based publishing house founded by religious scholar Herbert Richardson (Publisher).^[1] It describes itself as "a non-subsidy academic publisher of books in the humanities and social science",^[2] but has been described by others as a vanity press.^[3][4] Beginning in 1993, the Press has been infamous for filing suits charging libel against critics, generating significant controversy, particularly in the academic world.^[5]

History

In 1972, the Edwin Mellen Press began as a side project that was run from the basement of Herbert Richardson's home that he shared with his wife and four children. The original goal was simply to publish dissertations by graduate students from his department at the University of St. Michael's College, a Roman Catholic institution that is part of the University of Toronto. The business was named after Edwin Mellen, Richardson's grandfather who was a lover of books and died of a heart attack at 58.^[6] Richardson great grandfather was Isaac Adams, a Massachusetts State Senator and the inventor of the Adams Power Press.^[7]

Soon thereafter, the press expanding to publishing dissertations from those outside the University who had trouble finding a publisher. Often, university presses look for works that appeal to thousands of readers, however, the Press looks for work that may appeal to only a few dozen and is generally interested in whether a work contributed to scholarship of a wide range of subjects. The press has published books on topics as varied as the health problems of migrants living on the border of Thailand and Burma to the role of parrots in fiction.^[6]

By 1979, the press had grown large enough that Richardson's wife wanted the business moved out of the basement. Shortly thereafter, Edwin Mellen Press opened up shop in Lewiston, NY, a village just across the Canadian border near Niagara Falls. The press continued to grow and soon published as many as 150 titles a year. The Press claimed that universities around the world own their published books, including the University of London, which has 4,926 of its books, and Harvard, which has 4,731.^[6]

Controversies

Throughout its history, the Press has earned a reputation for taking legal action against its critics, which has generated significant controversy and additional criticism.

• In 1993, the Press brought a libel suit against the magazine Lingua Franca, which it lost.^[5]
• In 2012, it brought a similar suit for $3.5 million in damages against McMaster University and one of its librarians, Dale Askey, over a blog posting made in 2010, before the man started working for the university.^[8] The Canadian Association of University Teachers and others criticized the suit as an attempt to use legal action to silence criticism; they believe that publication of criticism is a legitimate exercise of academic freedom.^[3][9] Martha Reineke, a professor of religion at the University of Northern Iowa, initiated a petition demanding the Press drop its lawsuits; it garnered more than 3,100 names as of March 4, 2013. On that date, the Press announced that it had discontinued the court case against McMaster and Askey, ^[10] but it continued a lawsuit against Askey personally.^[11] On February 5, 2015, Askey said that the Edwin Mellin Press had settled its second lawsuit against him.^[12]
• On March 21, 2013, Edwin Mellen Press threatened legal action against The Society for Scholarly Publishing for hosting allegedly libelous blog posts and comments on The Scholarly Kitchen.^[13] The Scholarly Kitchen removed the content in question from its website on March 29, 2013. It restored the blog post, though not the specific comment alleged to be libellous, a few days later, and published a blog post explaining its actions.^[14][15]
• In April 2013, the Press threatened to take legal action against the interim library dean of the University of Utah, over blog posts he wrote criticizing the Press for its legal action against Askey.^[16] The matter was settled, without payment, in February 2015.^[17]

Sociologist Kenneth Westhues studied aspects of this litigation in his book The Envy of Excellence: Administrative Mobbing of High Achieving Professors (2006), a work published by the Edwin Mellen Press.^[18]

Published works

• Cameron, Averil; Puttick, Elizabeth; Clarke, Bernard (1993), Desert Mothers: Women Ascetics in Early Christian Egypt, Edwin Mellen Press 
• Current Issues on Theology and Religion in Latin America and Africa. Lewiston, N.Y. and Lampeter, U.K.: Edwin Mellen Press, 280 + xv pp., 2002.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. I: The First Period of the Pinochet Government 1973-1980. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, 302 pp. Winner of the Adele Mellen Prize 2004
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. II: The Archbishop Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 364 pp. 2006.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. III: The Second Period of the Pinochet Government 1980-1990. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006.
• Morley, Ian (2008). British provincial civic design and the building of late-Victorian and Edwardian cities, 1880-1914. Edwin Mellen Press. 
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. IV: Torture and Forced Disappearance 1973-1974. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. V: Torture and Forced Disappearance 1974-1976. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. VI: The Allende Government 1970-1973. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. VII: Christians for Socialism and the MIR. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. VIII: The Visit of John Paul II (1987). Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012.
• A History of the Lamas in Tibet 1391-2006. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012.
• Church, Liberation and World Religions. London: T&T Clark, 2012.
• A Social History of the Catholic Church in Chile Vol. IX: St. Alberto Hurtado and St. Teresa de Los Andes. Lewinston, New York, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.

References

External links

• Official website
• Murray Miles, "The Responsibility Of Professors: Academic Freedom, Peer Review, And The Scholarly Conscience Today"(1995) Note: This article has been removed, but is still available in the Wayback Machine
• "Publishing Ethics and Platform Neutrality - Peer to Peer Review", Library Journal',' 12 March 2013