Byline: Jake New

As a librarian for the University of Utah, Rick Anderson talks regularly to scholarly publishers. But he had never had a call quite like the one he got last summer from Herbert W. Richardson, the founder of Edwin Mellen Press.

The press was willing to donate $50,000 worth of books if the library wanted them. Mr. Anderson was not interested, and he explained to Mr. Richardson that most of the press's titles were on topics too obscure for his library. Mr. Richardson defended his press, pointing out that it serves as a platform for scholarly work that often gets overlooked by university presses. But then the conversation took a peculiar turn.

"Do you know Dale Askey?" Mr. Richardson asked.

Mr. Anderson did know Dale Askey. Or he knew of Dale Askey, who had been a librarian at the University of Utah years earlier, before Mr. Anderson worked there. Mr. Richardson asked whether a blog post that Mr. Askey had written criticizing the press was the reason the university was no longer buying its books, as it had in the past.

Mr. Anderson said he was not even aware of the blog post, and he soon cut off the conversation to go to a meeting. At the time, he was left wondering why Edwin Mellen Press would be so concerned about a librarian with a blog.

As it turned out, Mr. Richardson was more concerned about the blogger than Mr. Anderson would have ever guessed. Two weeks before that phone call, Edwin Mellen Press had sent Mr. Askey two notifications of pending libel lawsuits against him seeking damages of more than $4-million.

By Web-commentary standards, the blog post was relatively tame. It refers to Edwin Mellen Press as "dubious" and calls some of its books "second-class scholarship." For a few months afterward, several people chimed in the comments section, some agreeing with Mr. Askey, others supporting the publisher.

To many librarians and professors, the lawsuits were not just an overreaction, but a fundamental violation of academic freedom. When news of the lawsuits hit the Internet, it ignited a firestorm of criticism: More than 3,000 people signed a petition demanding the lawsuits be dropped, and more than 30 scholarly organizations condemned the press.

Why would Mr. Richardson, who has a reputation as a shrewd businessman, pursue such lawsuits when the backlash was so predictable? To librarians and some of his former colleagues, Mr. Richardson is simply a bully. But Mr. Richardson says he's the one being bullied -- that during his own time as a university professor, his colleagues derailed his career because they didn't agree with his views.

Over the years, Mr. Richardson set up an alternate academic universe, one where he sets the rules. It started with his scholarly press and grew to include his own university.

The lawsuits against Mr. Askey are a reaction to what the publisher sees as a threat not just to...