Productivity in academia

Barbara Fister's recent Library Journal column examining productivity in academia brings up questions that I find very interesting. Why is so much of academic productivity measured in publications? She suggests a new way of applying for tenure, via a portfolio of a faculty person's top three artifacts of scholarly work in their field. An interesting idea that could change a pressure-cooker environment focused only on producing the most you can as fast as you can into a more introspective and quality-filled pursuit. Something to think about for those of us in academia!