Anthony Di Frances radiates friendliness every time he steps into the library. Staff describe a visit from him as a “bright spot” in their days. But beneath that cheerful surface, Anthony classifies himself as a nervous person and admits that “fear and nervousness are at the forefront of my brain most of the time.”
The good news is that he has discovered books, music, and movies that help him process that fear. The bad news is that many of those items are difficult to find, absurdly expensive, or both.
Not long ago, Anthony discovered that reading pulpy 60s and 70s crime fiction helps diffuse his anxiety. He is especially drawn to a subgenre of crime fiction that he refers to as “Loser Noir.” In it, Anthony says, “there is an everyday person who stumbles into ‘crime quicksand’ and then struggles as they sink deeper.” The person is in way over their head, grappling with helplessness, but “usually the guy is a total bonehead and makes everything worse.”
To Anthony, these books are a safe way to confront feelings of powerlessness: “Make one mistake big or small and you will lose everything — slowly and painfully and always while someone laughs wickedly. Can we all not relate to that in 2026?” He vividly remembers the moment of this revelation on a sticky summer night in West Hollywood encountering Christa Faust’s Money Shot on a bookshop’s shelf; that led to James Ellroy and Jim Thompson, the “Stones and Beatles of crime fiction” and from there, a growing list of more obscure authors and their out-of-print classics (that may or may not have stood the test of time).
Anthony began visiting the Delafield Public Library in 2018 and started digging through the CAFE catalog for titles on his long list of vintage crime fiction. The CAFE system of 24 Waukesha and Jefferson County libraries is like having an extensive archive beneath the library, full of more materials than aboveground shelf space allows. Appreciative of the resources that were available through this system, Anthony graciously accepted the limits. That is, until one day when he jokingly lamented to a librarian about something he couldn’t find and she offered to search an extended network and place an inter-library loan (ILL) request.
A new world opened up to Anthony, like finding an entire city under the ground he’d been walking on.
Now, when he learns about a book, album, or movie that piques his curiosity, Anthony heads straight to Wiscat, the statewide catalog. Finding items is not always clear-cut and easy. “There is an art and a science to searching, especially in the world of weird rock music… But when something finally appears, it feels so magical.” He then emails Katy, who has been one of Delafield Public Library’s resident ILL experts since 2012. Katy will send the request through Wiscat to all the participating libraries in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Anthony will sit back and wait to hear that it has arrived.
When Anthony enters the library to take that item home, he feels as if he sweeps down a red carpet to the circulation desk. “This wasn’t on the shelves to be picked out. It came here just for me.” Walking out the door with the treasure in his hands, he looks for a label stating which library it belongs to. “I feel actual affection for the libraries that lend out these materials and like to take a quiet moment to express my gratitude to them.”
In the past few years, Anthony has requested over 250 ILL items, mostly crime fiction and obscure metal or rock albums. “If I had to buy all of these, it would be hundreds of dollars. Actually, I’m sure I have saved one billion dollars so far.” The public library is not an archive—no one building has the space to shelve all that is old and all that is new. However, the vast network of Wisconsin and Minnesota libraries work together unseen, like so many tree roots in a forest, connecting hard-to-find items with people like Anthony who appreciate them more than library staff could ever know. 💙🧡💛