If you're anything like us, you feel like the 8th edition just came out! The MLA has nonetheless recently announced that the new 9th edition will be released in April 2021.
Per our usual, we do not change citation handbooks mid-semester, since A) that would be confusing, and B) the librarians need time to learn the style and make updates! Alas, no special advance copies for us. MLA 8 will be supported through spring and summer of 2021. We will officially adopt MLA 9 for fall 2021 with updated guides, handouts, and lessons.
The good news is that the list of changes and updates sound like they're maybe focused on adding examples, clarifying things, and putting in more resources as opposed to changing how citations are actually written -- "the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook works as both a textbook and a reference guide." Fingers crossed! There was some grumbling when the 8th came out that they ignored a lot of explanation of style and document formatting, focusing instead solely on the references, and this may be a correction of that.
The announcement also has a somewhat cryptic statement that "that the eighth edition will be available through February 2021." Presumably this means copies of the 8th edition will be printed through that time; possibly they'll start taking down materials on their MLA Style Center site -- we don't know. This shouldn't impact us, as we own copies of the 8th edition and our own support resources will not be changed or removed at that time.
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