WILL SEBERGER/Arizona Daily Wildcat Valorie Rice, left, and Pia Montoya of the Eller College of Business authored the award-winning 2003 Arizona Statistical Abstract.

It's no longer necessary for students to spend hours flipping through reference books trying to locate information on Arizona public school expenditures or statistics on the poverty status of Arizona counties.

Students looking for Arizona-related statistics can now consult the award-winning 2003 Arizona Statistical Abstract, published by the UA's Economic and Business Research program.

The 700-page data handbook was nationally recognized when it received the Award of Excellence in Publications from the Association for University Business and Economic Research last month.

EBR researchers, Pia Montoya, a 1977 alumnus, and Valorie Rice, who received her graduate degree at the UA in 1994, compiled the newest edition with the help of current students.

The EBR at Eller College is a coordinating agency for the Arizona State Data Center. Its purpose is to provide demographic and economic data to the public.

Marshall Vest, the EBR program director, said Montoya and Rice get the credit for putting together the best example of a state statistical abstract.

"It's formatted in a way that makes it very useful," Vest said. "So when somebody goes into a library and asks about social or economic data about Arizona or about Tucson, the librarian is going to go straight for this book."

Montoya and Rice said state decision makers, businesses and libraries are among those who use the abstract to obtain information about demographics and economics in Arizona.

"Do you want to know what the population of Arizona is," Rice asked. "And what it was in 1950? This (abstract) is all concise, all together, there it is - instead of searching 10 million different places, 'cause it took us a long time to compile."

The abstract has been two years coming and the compilation was not without obstacles and prolonged interruptions. Despite dealing with office floods that destroyed their data, office renovations and finally, office relocation, the two women said they were able to finish the abstract by June, updating along the way.

"A lot of stuff we had updated we had to re-update because it was obsolete," Montoya said.

There was a need for the Arizona Statistical Abstract, which was last published in 1993. The EBR won the same award for the abstract 10 years ago, she said.

She called the time spent compiling a decade's worth of state information a "labor of love."

"It took a lot of my weekends and my evenings," Montoya said, adding that she and Rice have received requests for a 2004 edition. The earliest they could do another abstract is 2005 or 2006 - that is, if they have the energy.

A data handbook that can provide information about the numbers of people who have health insurance in Arizona or how much land is privately owned is sure to be of use to Governor Janet Napolitano, who Montoya said requested a copy.

President George W. Bush's office library has a copy of the abstract as well.

Montoya said approximately 600 of the 1,000 available copies have been sold. Copies of the 2003 Arizona Statistical Abstract are available in the UA Main Library.