The library has a tape of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, reading his "A Child's Christmas in Wales." I've been listening to it as I drive.

Thomas, the preternaturally gifted wordsmith, is mesmerizing. On the one hand, he's definitely telling a story, the story of many Christmases in Wales, from the standpoint of a young boy. It's funny and charming.

On the other hand, the sheer, compelling beauty and strangeness of the language sometimes overwhelms the listener with phrases like these:

The longer I'm in the library business, the more I realize how deeply the public and private sectors are interconnected.

It's clear that in 2002, Colorado libraries have taken a hit financially. In some ways, this reflects what's happening in the business world. Many commercial operations are suffering a drop in sales, thus in revenue. Those libraries that are dependent on city sales taxes (as in Denver), are also seeing a sharp decline in revenue.

Three weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to trying to move from my Macintosh operating system (9.2) to something called Linux, a clone of the Unix operating system. I mentioned two reasons for this attempt: first, Linux is free (if you download it from the Internet) or cheap (a typical CD-ROM installation costs about $30).

Second, Linux now runs a variety of office applications -- spreadsheets, word processors, browsers, email, and the like. They, too, are free.

Last week I made what some might have found a surprising statement: "By and by, Windows users still might want to move to Linux." This was even though Windows users might then be using Open Office as a free alternative to Microsoft Office.
Why did I say that?

Because Windows software is inherently less secure than Linux (a free Unix clone).