I look at Couric's statement from another angle. 

Libraries are warehouses of information, mainly in printed text, but also other media.  The concept is one of concentrating vast amounts of information at an accessible location for optimum public use.  However, the information stored at libraries is limited by space, budgets, etc.

Today's computer-literate youth are much more adept at finding information on the web.   The more information made available via the web, the more accessible information becomes.  No longer will students be limited by matters of proximity, business hours, or the inventories of libraries; information will be available at the drop of a hat from anywhere in the world. 

So, the skills that most students ought to master today are not how to find a book in the Dewey decimal and Library of Congress Classification systems, but how to surf the net and evaluate the information they find.   They'll be able to visit libraries as museums.

I think this is just a case of ignorance. I'm sure you can go to any college anywhere and poll students and find that the majority don't know what the LCC is but, almost all of them will be able to tell you what the Dewey Decimal System is...although they wouldn't be able to explain the details of it.

I think because people are taught in grade school about the DDS, they just assume it is used by all libraries even though it is completely different from the LCC. 

"There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear." --General George S. Patton, Jr.

I don't think Katie hit the books so much as the books hit her. Squarely upside the head.

This republic will not survive the continued neglect of its people.- Neal Boortz.

Couric has two themes, as does much of the drive-by media:  1.  the Republicans are f**ked up and this is why with the obverse being the dim bulbs are great but we can't tell you why because you would probably puke and 2.  this sh*t is going to f**k you up, your kids, someone you know, or everybody on the planet  and this is why.

The above Couric "news" article falls in the later category.  First of all, this is the most ill researched goofy article I've heard of for sometime.  I ran it by my youngest son who is a senior in college.  He goes to the library, but not for the reasons that Couric thinks everyone should.  He goes there because it is quite and he can concentrate on his studies without interruption.  The last reason that he goes there is to do research.  Why?  Because virtually everything that he needs is on line. 

In fact, modern libraries today, if one was to venture beyond the "Employees Only" signs, would find from rather small to a vast arrays of servers, storage, switches and routers whirling away with a "propeller head" hovering over them to ensure that they don't hickup. 

Take for example the subject of Dante's Inferno that one of above posters mentioned.  A quick google search came up with 2,000,000 entries!  That's 2 million entries!  One link takes you to web site that offers three different translations of the original text; another offers you the original Italian.  Another, will read you the text of the poem.  Just want read to you a certain verse? Great, search to that verse and adjust your computer's audio system to suite your pleasure and fire it up.  Still another is a personal web site devoted to the subject.  It goes on and on. 

I live in a small North Carolina town (I know that is an oxymoron).  Here is the reference page of the on line version of its library:  http://www.sppl.net/Library/OnlineReferenceResources.aspx.  Note, the plethora of information that is available to me in a podunk town of several thousands souls.

Couric's "news" story is the crap that is "produced" by people making millions of dollars to bring you the "best" news you can use.  You just have to laugh at their slip shod efforts.  What a bunch of losers.  No, wait, turn up the TV.  It's that commercial about how I can get that Hover 'Round for FREE!!! 

Back in the 60's Before todays wonders of cyber land. I was getting squared away to finalize my undergraduate degree. They realized I'd never taken this dinky one hour course on using the library. Of course my response. "If I haven't figured out how to use it by now?"

So there I sat. A graduating senior with all those freshmen. They taught me the Library of Congress system. Already being used way back then.  Like I hadn't figured it out already. Took me as long as it took to go through the card catalogue, and to look at the map of the stacks..

I wanted to talk about the abstracts, the chart room, use of the microfilm room, government documents, and the rare books room that I often used and needed. Each with unique characteristics. Things I needed.

They wanted me to use the Readers guide to periodic literture.

Another example of someone deciding what you need and forcing you into the mold.  

Pure BS

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”   H.L. Mencken