On a Wednesday afternoon in 1985, just before Halloween, a young woman named Sylvia Seegrist strode into a Southeastern Pennsylvania mall. Using a semi-automatic rifle, she fired repeatedly at random people before she was subdued by John Laufer III, a shopper who found himself in her crosshairs. According to an November 3, 1985 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, he initially believed that the incident was some kind of prank, but thankfully, he didn't take chances. He took the gun away from her, sat her down inside a shoe store, and kept her at bay until a mall security guard handcuffed her. Anyone who was still at the Springfield Mall in the moments that followed owes Laufer a debt of gratitude, because while Seegrist had already killed 3 people, wounded 7 others, and traumatized countless dozens, she could have harmed even more.
Although authors and documentarians tend to focus on other aspects of the story, this week I learned that this case has a place within Pennsylvania library history, as an early, high-profile test of Pennsylvania Act 90 (1984). As it turned out, Seegrist was a frequent user of Swarthmore Public Library in the months leading up to the shooting. In fact, she had visited SPL less than 2 hours before she headed to the mall and unreturned books were still outstanding on her account as police were investigating her crimes. Recently signed into law by then-Governor Dick Thornburgh, Act 90 was a revision to the state code, asserting that circulation records containing personally identifiable information are confidential, and cannot be shared unless ordered by a court for a criminal proceeding. So, as Seegrist was brought to justice, the library and law enforcement had significant new terrain to navigate.
The library connection is the focus of a series of articles published in the Pennsylvania Library Association's Bulletin, where I found out about it this week. At PaLA's 1987 Annual Conference, SPL Director Janis M. Lee and Swarthmore Borough Attorney G. Guy Smith delivered a panel discussion that the Bulletin editor described as "the best program any of us had witnessed anywhere." Lee's and Smith's commentary was so timely, important, and compelling that it was printed serially across three issues (February, March, and April 1988). It was also picked up by the June 1988 edition of American Libraries.
Reflecting on my many years in libraries, I am inspired by the mix of personal empathy and professional resolve Lee seemed to show in situations that would be profoundly stressful, even for the most seasoned and cool-headed among us. Swarthmore is a small community -- about 6,000 residents -- thus within the borough Lee had connections to one of the victims and knew others who were close to the tragedy. Beside the fact that Seegrist was a patron in her library, Lee had been a patient of one of the people (a doctor) who was killed. She knew others who were shopping at Springfield Mall and had fled for their lives when the shooting took place. Her husband, a police officer, provided crowd-control at the scene during the aftermath.
As I read Lee's account, the pressure that she felt was still palpable more than 30 years after the fact. For months, she fielded questions from criminal investigators, the District Attorney's office, and Seegrist's defense team. Because Act 90 was so new, they weren't aware of it, and, caught by surprise, their reactions ranged from disbelief to hostility. They treated Lee with "disdain and even animosity," as though she was an "obstacle" and the privacy law was an "inconvenience." Journalists who should have understood a thing or two about confidentiality turned out to be "relentless" in their pursuit of information about reading materials that might have reflected the shooter's thoughts or influenced her actions. In fact, one reporter from the Inquirer was so aggressive, buttonholing staff in search of answers that Lee wouldn't provide, that Lee sent a written complaint to the paper. She understood that Seegrist's behavior and the items she borrowed weren't just matters of curiosity -- weighed as evidence, such details could help the court determine Seegrist's guilt or innocence. Careful about unfairly giving either side the advantage it was looking for, Lee continued to educate them about library regulations.
In early November 1985, Lee wrote a memo to her staff, reminding them to read procedural information that she had posted inside a cabinet door at the circulation desk. What's more, she demonstrated significant ethical leadership as she explained the importance of implementing Act 90. Among other things, she wrote:
Above all, the law protects the patron's right to read whatever he or she chooses and to have those choices kept totally confidential ... This can be as serious as the case of Miss Seegrist or the most innocent of situations such as who has the latest James Michener bestseller ... Act 1984-90 protects all patrons of the library, and it is our responsibility as agents of the library to do everything in our power to uphold the law and support the civil rights of those we serve. That includes a child reading about birth control, a parent researching child abuse or divorce, or a mentally disturbed person reading about crime and violence! In spite of a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter's opinion to the contrary, all are guaranteed protection whether they quote-deserve it-unquote or not. (Janis M. Lee, "A Court Encounter," PLA Bulletin, January/February 1988)
When a court order finally came in February 1986, it clarified some matters, but this wasn't the end of Lee's ordeal. Her description of testifying in court is vivid and thought-provoking. Speaking overall about her encounters with lawyers, she warned that they "hammer at you until you are confused. They try as hard as they can to get you to say things you don't want to say. They ask you questions rapidly, one after another, hoping you won't have time to think and will blurt out just what they're looking for." After months of dealing with them, Lee had believed that she was well-prepared for Seegrist's trial, but then, while she was waiting to take the stand, she encountered 2 child witnesses who bore scars from being shot. Heartwrenchingly, the kids asked to see her wounds and showed her theirs. It was also hard for Lee to look Seegrist in the eye, despite the difficult library patron she had been and the heinous deeds she'd committed. Lee felt as if she was "betraying [Seegrist's] right to privacy in spite of all [she] had been through to protect it." Although Act 90 provided clear direction on how to handle questions about the library materials, other questions, such as Seegrist's general demeanor or the reference questions she'd asked, weren't covered by Pennsylvania's law. At the end of her day in court, Lee couldn't unsee the little girls' "big, sad eyes" or the bullet wounds on their bodies. And yet, she also felt like a "traitor" for sharing information about Seegrist, however truthful or legally-admissible it was.
At this stage of my research, I can't say how much space I will give this story when I eventually start to write about Pennsylvania libraries during the 1950s-2000s. If I do include it in a journal article or a book, I'd want to do more digging first to ensure I've included perspectives other than Lee's, verify and update what I've learned, and find out how much the Seegrist case influenced library practice in the 1990s and beyond. But even if this episode ends up on the cutting floor, it's something that I will carry with me into my professional practice. Up until now, the topic of confidentiality in libraries has been something (too) straightforward and impersonal in my mind -- something I learned about in graduate school, a test question I knew the "correct" answer for, but something that I had never really grappled with or felt my way through. Having read Lee's "A Court Encounter" series in PaLA Bulletin, I am much more aware, if not prepared, for the social and psychological strain that a confidentiality case can cause. That's just as important as knowing the rule of law and professional codes of ethics. Trying to serve everyone equitably within our communities, librarians stand in between offenders and victims, feeling for both sides even in circumstances where we cannot officially take the side of either.
Speaking about the Seegrist case two years after the shooting, Lee expressed gratitude for Act 90, her professional involvement in PaLA that had made her aware of it, a board of trustees that supported her efforts to uphold the law, and a city solicitor who provided useful advice when she needed it. But I am thankful for her, for sharing her story in the Bulletin. She provided me with a real-life model of how to respond if this type of violence happens in my town and the police and press come knocking at my door. Janis M. Lee passed away in 2023, but wherever she is, I hope she can sense my appreciation for what she did.
