a laser beam penetrate steel?

What was the cause of Lou Gehrig's death? Who made the submarine Alvin, which found the hydrogen bomb off the coast of Spain? Which of the states spends the least funds per capita on higher education? Which the most?-

These are but a few of the 4,000 or more queries fielded last week by a highly professional team at Time Inc. known variously about the shop as the morgue, edit ref and, correctly but rarely, the Bureau of Editorial Reference. Over the years, as the demands of the editors and the volume of information have grown, so has the bureau, which also serves TIME'S sister publications-LIFE, FORTUNE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED-as well as other divisions of the company.

The queries the bureau handles often go beyond a single direct question. Researchers for this week's Essay on patience, for example, asked for and got the following: examples of patience and impatience in the American character; the part patience plays in war, salesmanship, education and moneymaking; examples of how patience is conducive to harmonious marriage; data on scientific feats that required great patience; what the Stoics had to say on patience; facts on well-known products that required years to develop; figures on the average length of time an executive stays with his company.

When TIME was launched 43 years ago this month, the "library" the editors took with them to the print shop the first night that they went to press consisted of half a dozen reference works and, appropriately enough, a copy of Homer's Iliad. Today's library, which occupies half of the 26th floor of the TIME & LIFE Building, houses some 83,000 books, half a million biographic and other file folders, and is staffed by 117 men and women, 22 of whom hold degrees in library science. The bureau also maintains a microfilm section and in dex files that hold 3,000,000 cards. It regularly receives approximately 1,000 different periodicals.

The man who heads this many-faceted operation is a scholarly veteran of World War II with impressive credentials in his field. Peter Draz, 42, a graduate of Denison University in Ohio, also holds master's degrees in history (University of Pennsylvania) and library science (Western Reserve). Draz came to Time Inc. after a 61-year stint at the Library of Congress, where he headed the Reader Service Section of the Manuscript Division and later the Public Refer ence Section of the General Refer ence and Bibliography Division.

"We are, of course, in the midst of an information explosion," says Draz. "We are now storing many more types of information than we used to, because of the way the company is expanding and the magazines themselves venturing into new areas. The library is staffed about 100 hours a week to give maximum support to researchers, writers and editors."

"And," he gently chides the editors, "if you must still think of this place as the morgue, please don't think of us as the loved ones."

* Answers: yes; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Litton Industries; Massachusetts; Alaska.

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