This new sourcebook has two firsts for Engineering News-Record. It is the first time we have expanded our Top Owners issue to a sourcebook, and the first time we have combined a sourcebook with a news magazine.

Our Top Owners ranking, which has appeared since 1990, ranks the U.S. publicly traded companies based on the construction value of plants and other structures in progress during the year. Readers have often asked, "What about other owners? We would like more information about other sectors." We hope this new sourcebook will help.

Senior Markets Editor Joann Gonchar and Editorial Research Director Scott Lewis dived into the giant task of collecting additional construction spending information from owners. "We discovered how elusive some municipal spending data is, and we hope to reel that in for next year’s edition," says Lewis. This year, we explored owner spending in sectors such as transportation, higher education, health care and water supply.

We also decided to bundle the sourcebook with the news section from your weekly magazine. Send me an e-mail to tell me what you think about the combination.

By JANICE L. TUCHMAN
Editor-in-Chief