Has MLA seen the light?

To follow up on my Quo vadis? post regarding the growth of new media scholarly publication, Jim Retting offers promising ruminations at his Twilight Librarian. Jim sifts through the Modern Language Association's recently released Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion to locate the following recommendation:

4. Departments and institutions should recognize the legitimacy of scholarship produced in new media, whether by individuals or in collaboration, and create procedures for evaluating these forms of scholarship.

Jim recognizes clearly what escapes someone like myself, safely beyond the exigencies of academic tenure and promotion: No faculty member will consider exploiting the new media for publishing without the promise that it will be tangibly acknowledged.

It's too early to pop the cork on the champagne. But Jim makes an excellent point:

It will open new opportunities for collaboration with humanities faculty who turn to librarians and educational technologists for assistance and guidance. Librarians and educational technologists can even form partnerships to help senior faculty learn about the role new media can play in humanities scholarship so that these faculty will be able to make truly informed judgments about their younger colleagues' work.