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Continuing its long tradition of focused deliberation on issues relating to library instruction in higher education, the Instruction Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries developed a series of live and online events during 1999, collectively known as Think Tank III: Information Literacy and the Technological Transformation of Higher Education. The Instruction Section had previously sponsored Think Tank I in 1981 and Think Tank II in 1989.
Think Tank III started as a day-long working session during the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans in June 1999. The event brought together a small group of librarians and educational technologists from around the country to present papers on critical information literacy issues and reflect on the future direction of library instruction in higher education. Participant papers and discussions at the working session incorporated themes regarding trends in technology, information literacy, collaboration within higher education, and scholarly communication. Later that year, during the months of October and November, the Instruction Section presented a "virtual" think tank experience that made use of a variety of web-based communication technologies, including threaded discussion forums and real-time electronic discussion rooms. This online forum allowed participants to view in-process draft copies of the think tank papers and leave questions and comments for the authors and other forum visitors.
Financial support for the New Orleans working session was provided by both the ACRL Initiative Fund and netLibrary. | 
