The arrest of a former University library worker as the infamous Widener slasher has focused attention on Harvard's decision not to require background checks for many of its lower level employees.

Stephen L. Womack was arrested and arraigned this week on charges that he allegedly destroyed millions of dollars worth of books. He is sitting in a Cambridge jail cell today even as police continue their investigation into the 42-year-old Arlington resident's background and his possible motive for the crime.

In the past four years, Womack, a part-time library employee from 1990 to 1992, has stolen books from Northeastern University, tried to extort money from that university and threatened to blow up a bank if ransom money was not left for him at Widener, according to police. He also sent letters saying he would blow up libraries at Northeastern and at Harvard if they did not fire all their Jewish employees.

In announcing Womack's arrest this week, University officials described the suspect as a lone must of sorts. They said there was no reason for Harvard to overreact and impose new checks on its employees.

"We're very glad this disturbed individual has been caught," said Joe Wrinn, acting director of the Harvard News Office. "We're glad it's over."

Harvard College Librarian Richard De Gennaro, in fact, explicitly said that the University should not require background checks for library employees.

"This person obviously has mental problems, and you don't make policy based on that," he said Thursday. "This is just one person who happened to be a very bad apple."

But if Harvard had looked into Womack's past, they might have discovered that he had a decade-long history of mutilating books, according to officials at the Lexington Public Library. Wikje Feteris, a librarian there, said this week that Womack had taken out hundreds of books there, and returned only the covers.

Harvard Police Chief Paul E. Johnson said yesterday that employee background checks should be instituted in many parts of the University.

"Anybody who works for Harvard should be scrutinized carefully," Johnson said. "It would make my job easier because the possibility of these things happening would be reduced to some extent."

In addition, Johnson said that by developing extensive information on employees, Harvard could make it easier to solve complicated cases of employee theft.

In the Womack case, for instance, University officers had little background information available on the former library employee because Harvard had never bothered to ask for it.

Even though police had suspected an inside job from the time books were first found slashed in 1990, it took nearly four years, hours of Federal Bureau of Investigation assistance and a tip from Northeastern to crack the case.

"When you get into these investigations," Johnson said, "it is considerably more substantial [to have background information]."

Other Cases

Harvard officials attempted to emphasize the uniqueness of the Womack case. But police are currently investigating at least one other slashing case in which a University affiliate may be a suspect.