GeoCAT Planning Thread

Here it is!



How do we want to set up this CAT?

I think the geographical regions we used last time worked very well and we could use them again.

Do people want to also have a focus each month?

I wonder if a unifying focus for the year would work? Something like Nobel prize winners from each region, or women authors from each region, or exploration in each region, or indigenous peoples in each region?

I haven't thought through to see if that would be practical, but I like the idea of doing a focused year long study of some aspect like that throughout different regions. It might lead to some interesting comparisons.

I like the idea of doing an Awards focus for the various geographies that are selected.

>4 LoisB: So long as the awards chosen aren't narrow focus, but are open to a lot of them.

>5 majkia: Right! I agree about the broad focus. I would hate to be restricted to Booker prize winners for each country!

I like the way the period and focus has worked out for this year's HistoryCAT. So we could have, for example, North America as our geographical theme as we work our way round the world and ethnic minorities as our theme for that month, which we could combine as ehtnic minorities in North America or some people might choose ethnic minorities in any part of the world or others might choose any book related to North America.

I think we need to keep it pretty open. I'm not likely to purchase books that aren't available in my library. I'd like to see it open to books "about" (non-fiction), "set in" (fiction), or "by authors in" (fiction/non-fiction) the regions.

>8 thornton37814: ditto

>8 thornton37814: Yes, I agree.

I'd also be open to an optional women authors focus, awards focus, or an immigrant/minority focus each month.

Well, any focus would be optional with the region being wide open ...

Still, if we do have a focus it should be one that most people can try for rather than being so narrow that finding something in the local library is iffy.

I just wanted to mention the amazing wikis that were set up with the geocat two years ago. I continue to use them and add to them. Thank you so much to everyone who set them up and contributed!

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/FictionLocation

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Non-Fiction_Location

And the geocat inspired me to join the Global Challenge group which is not so much a talk group as a place to keep track of your books' locations or authors. http://www.librarything.com/groups/theglobalchallenge

I think there are good arguments both in favor of a broad focus topic or a narrow one. One thing with a broad focus and a large geographical area is that it doesn't allow for a deeper understanding or good discussions. A large geographical area (North America, for example) paired with a broad focus (female authors for example) leaves us with it unlikely that there will be any overlap in our reading.

A narrow focus would also allow for an occasional group read to flow naturally. Otherwise we're just shoehorning the group reads in. We could have the group read as the focus topic. I'd suggest just doing this a few times - two or three - to see what we think. And for people who need a larger selection of books to choose from, there is still the main theme of the month. I'd also suggest tying the theme and focus together, so that the focus is necessarily part of the theme. I think one thing that hurt the HistoryCAT was that the focus could be read outside of the era. We were all over the place.

If the purpose is to encourage discussion then a narrow focus might be best, but if the purpose is to encourage people to take part on a regular basis it shouldn't be too narrow.

If the main theme is broad, isn't that enough to encourage people to participate? It can sometimes (to me, at least) be more fun to have to look for something that fits rather than have a good number of books immediately spring to mind. And there is the fun of a challenge, which isn't really there if we all have six suitable books on our nightstand.

If the focus gets too narrow, I probably won't participate that often. I'm still trying to read a lot of books that are on my TBR list available locally (in the library) or books that are in my stash of books that needs to be downsized before moving.

Didn't we have the broad areas with an optional more narrow focus last time we did this? For example, it seems that with South America the narrow focus was the Amazon Rain Forest. Maybe we could do something like this again so that those who need a broader focus due to availability have it and those who really want to discuss and participate in group reads can do that?

Lori, would you read in a book that fits the broad theme if the focus was outside of what you could find to read? Or would you then just skip that month entirely?

Just have a different focus for each region this time? That's pretty much what I was thinking of while we were voting. Then we do have both broad and narrow as >16 thornton37814: says.

>17 RidgewayGirl:. I would probably read something every month even if the narrow focus didn't work for me.

>2 hailelib: Could someone copy over the 2014 GeoCAT monthly regional divisions or give a link to it?

I like the idea of an optional Awards focus. I am not sure how having a different focus for each region would look like. >18 hailelib: Could you give an example of what you are thinking about?

Link to GeoCat Wiki for 2014 - www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2014_GeoCAT

2014 GeoCAT

January - Canada and the US
February - Middle East and North Africa
March - Central America, Mexico and Caribbean
April - Eastern Europe
May - South Asia (India, etc.)
June - Islands and Bodies of Water
July - Polar Regions
August - Western Europe
September - East Asia (China, Japan, etc.)
October - South America
November - Australia and Oceania
December - Sub-Saharan Africa

Each month also had a focus that related to that region - the January one was immigration.

If we use these same geographic areas again, I suggest either changing "Central America, Mexico and Caribbean" to the "Caribbean" and "South America" to "Latin America" or including the Caribbean in the "Islands and Bodies of Water" group. In 2014, I think that Mexico and Central America did not receive the proper attention since the two of the three suggested focus points (and the one which won) was the Caribbean. When I was the host for South America, I was not able to include Mexico which is an integral part of Latin America.

>20 hailelib: Thanks!

So now I have the list in front of me, I remember that I wasn't thrilled with that order - especially having Islands & Bodies of Water followed by Polar Regions (both of which struck me as difficult areas). Also, maybe Australia & Oceania should be Australia & New Zealand since Oceania is already covered in Islands & Bodies of Water... In fact, isn't the Caribbean also covered by Islands & Bodies of Water?

How about making Canada & USA into North America by adding Mexico & putting Central America with South America & adding (an admittedly screwball category) extraterrestial! In nonfiction that could include biographies or memoirs of astronauts and astronomy. *Just kidding!*

>21 sallylou61: I see we cross posted! I like the idea of Latin America as a region & (obviously) agree that Caribbean should be in Islands & Bodies of Water.

If we end up with too categories due to new suggested combinations (such as in >20 hailelib: and the following), couldn't we split up the US and Canada into two? They are both huge enough, aren't they?

>8 thornton37814: I like keeping it open like you're suggesting.

>16 thornton37814: I agree with this, as well. A broad area with a narrow focus.

>20 hailelib: I liked the set up of the 2014 one. I liked the areas that were chosen, with an narrower focus that fit the area. I think someone already suggesting just maybe changing the focus for each month and keeping the areas the same.

Ok, after reading a few more comments, I like the idea of adding Mexico to Latin America, Caribbean to Islands.

If we do end up with an open month, I also like the idea of >24 Chrischi_HH: splitting Canada and the US each into their own months, but maybe that's being unfair to some of the other areas?

>17 RidgewayGirl: When we had the GEOcat before, I often didn't have anything that fit the narrow focus but tried to find something for the broad one. I would probably continue to do that.

Based on my reading from last time, here are some of my suggestions:

* agree with adding Mexico to Latin America
* agree with adding Caribbean to islands; maybe also Pacific Islands?
* agree with just having Australia & New Zealand
* combine islands, bodies of water and polar regions into one month
* separate United Kingdom and Ireland from Western Europe

I would be totally up for an extraterrestrial month! ha ha

I vaguely remember that Canada and the U.S. were combined to give us more months for the rest of the world so as to be more diverse. Also islands were with bodies of water so as to not leave out the ones outside Oceana and the West Indies.

That said, there's no reason we can't change things up a bit.

I like that Mexico and Central America are separate from South America in the 2014 version of GEOCat. With 8 nations in Central America (including Mexico) and 14 in South America (including French Guiana and the Falkland Islands, which is controversial) there is tremendous reading potential for both areas. The Caribbean can legitimately be attached to either (Belize in Central America and Guyana and Suriname in South America are often included in the great Caribbean region), although as has been pointed out, the islands of the Caribbean fit nicely into Islands and Bodies of Water.

I agree that Australia and New Zealand could be paired, with Oceania moving to Islands. I also tend to agree that Polar Regions could easily be coupled with Islands and Bodies of Water. The idea to add the U.K. and Ireland (presumably into the slot opened by the Polar Regions move) would probably increase the diversity of reading for the Western Europe month.

Looking through the 2014 challenge, one thing that strikes me is that several of the focus areas tended to give the months a more Western/English focus: Middle East and North Africa was focused on the Holy Land (i.e., the most familiar part of the region to a Judaeo-Christian readership), Central America and Caribbean was focused on Commonwealth Nations, Islands was focused on the Atlantic Ocean.

I like the idea of a broad area for the main theme with a tighter focus each month. If I remember correctly we came up with three ideas for a focus theme for each region and then voted on our choices. As >33 _Zoe_: says, the final result was that we tended to veer toward a more Western/English focus but I think that was dictated by the books we either had on our TBR's or were available at the library.

I'm a little leery of trying to tie in an Awards Focus with the GeoCat for every region and would rather see a separate AwardsKit.

I like the ideas people have been coming up with to slightly reshape the Regions. This seems to be how it is shaping up now:

* Canada & The U.S.A.
* Central America & Mexico
* South America
* The British Isles & Ireland
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Middle East and Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* South Asia
* East Asia
* Australia and New Zealand
* Polar Regions, Islands and Bodies of Water

I quite like this breakdown.

>32 Dejah_Thoris: The idea to add the U.K. and Ireland (presumably into the slot opened by the Polar Regions move) would probably increase the diversity of reading for the Western Europe month.

That was my thought too.

>34 DeltaQueen50: I'm liking that too!

This looks good to me. :)

And suggesting a few focus topics for each month and then voting sounds good, too.

I think that we should, if we do a focus for each region, choose a different one this time. While I liked the way we divided up the world last time, this version would work very well.

>34 DeltaQueen50: That does look like a nice breakdown.

I also like the regions in #34. However, I would change "Latin America and Mexico" to "Mexico and Central America" since Mexico, Central America, and South America are all considered to be Latin America. I also like the order given in #34 instead of jumping all around the world as we did in 2014.

I also like Judy's breakdown in #34.

I too am liking the breakdown in >34 DeltaQueen50:, with the suggested change in >39 sallylou61: implemented. This is looking like it'll be fun!

I'd like to reduce, rather than increase, our focus on the West. I don't like the idea of separating Britain and Ireland from W Europe. I'd prefer to pick up a 3rd Asia region instead, or Africa.

I like pairing Australia and New Zealand, and leaving off Oceania.

I loved the Polar regions last time and do not want to combine them with something else.

Extraterrestrial was suggested last time and I was disappointed it didn't make the cut. However I've cooled on it somewhat and probably would vote against it this year. Maybe we could do a Space and Water theme - the two areas of interest that are not on land. Islands could then go with their nearest land region.

No strong preference on where we put Mexico, but I think North America would be a good place for it. The "Latin-ness" of Mexico would offer an alternative to the unrelenting sameness of American and Canadian books for those who are interested in some diversity.

I think anyone who is interested in combining GeoCAT with another challenge, such as Award books, or woman authors, or native peoples should be encouraged to go for it and keep the rest of us updated on their progress. For the general group I think it would be better to have a stand-alone focus theme. Stand alone from the other focus themes, I mean. Each focus should still be a part of the larger region for that month. And I agree with the person who suggested that we try for more challenging focus themes this time.

>39 sallylou61: I totally agree that it should be "Central America and Mexico" and I have changed the list to reflect this.

We are making excellent progress. What I see from reading the thread so far is that the question we need to answer now are:

Do we want to go with the list in >34 DeltaQueen50:, or would we prefer a less Western-focused CAT? This would mean returning the UK and Ireland to Europe and adding a third category from Asia or Africa.

Then we need to decide how to come up with the focus topics. Maybe take suggestions and vote? Does anyone see any obvious group reads yet? I think these will be clearer once we've chosen focus topics, but there may be something obvious out there.

Regarding the focus topics, I think we should vote on what we want them to look like. Do we want them to be broad and easy so that we can all manage to find a book, or narrower in order to be more challenging and to spark conversation?

I am comparatively indifferent as to where we put Mexico. I think I would prefer different foci from last time, though if I don't have something that is included in a particular month's focus I will just shrug and read something from the wider region.

I would like more Asia instead of more Europe. Not sure how to best divide it - maybe China or Indian subcontinent on their own?

The narrow focus option would be best if we want a real challenge. I'm not sure if it would actually lead to more discussion unless there is a group read within the focus.

If the idea is truly to reduce the focus on western literature, may I make a radical suggestion that we combine the US, Canada and United Kingdom? This is where the bulk of my reading originates by default, so it would be more challenging to have only one month dedicated to these countries. I will likely be reading them all year anyway.

I found this three way division of Asia on wikipedia:

Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos,Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam

East Asia: China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan

South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India,Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

I think we could still do Western Europe (excluding UK and Ireland) without having a separate month for the UK and Ireland. They would still fit into the Islands month, and I do think there's a lot to be said for encouraging reading about other countries during the Western Europe month. But I'd also have nothing against a UK and Ireland month.

Since we already have East Asia and South Asia, with a lot of Western Asia falling under the Middle East category, I think the obvious other Asia category would be North and Central Asia: Russia, the Silk Road, etc.

>47 sturlington: I like the idea of combining the UK with Canada and the US.

I like the Central Asia idea!

And me, I'm just confused, lol

It will all be clear soon, majkia.

I like the list by >34 DeltaQueen50: with adjustments by >39 sallylou61:. I do not like lumping the UK, US and Canada together.

>48 _Zoe_: I like your idea of North and Centra Asia being the third Asian option if that's where we go.

Like >53 VivienneR: I'm not a fan of lumping all three HUGE locations together (UK, US, Canada).

As for focus topics, I like them a bit broader, as I'd like to be able to find something that fits, but I do work off my tbr. That being said, if the narrow route is chosen, I will likely not be using the focus topics and stick with the broader area on its own.

Let's figure a few things out.

Votes will be open until September 25th.A YES vote agrees with that statement. A NO vote indicates that you would prefer a narrow focus topic. UNDECIDED means you'd like to discuss this further before making a choice.

As a reminder, this is how that looked:

January - Canada and the US
February - Middle East and North Africa
March - Central America, Mexico and Caribbean
April - Eastern Europe
May - South Asia (India, etc.)
June - Islands and Bodies of Water
July - Polar Regions
August - Western Europe
September - East Asia (China, Japan, etc.)
October - South America
November - Australia and Oceania
December - Sub-Saharan Africa

A YES vote wants no changes to this order. A NO vote means you'd like one or more changes. See below for what those are. UNDECIDED means you'd like more discussion first.

A YES vote agrees with this statement. A NO vote would like Oceania to remain as a category.

A YES vote agrees with the above statement. A NO vote would rather they not be combined. An UNDECIDED vote indicates that you would like more discussion on the topic.

A YES vote agrees with the above statement. A NO vote indicates that you do not want the UK to be put in the same category as the US and Canada. An UNDECIDED vote indicates that you would like there to be more discussion on the topic.

A YES vote indicates that you would like to have "The UK and Ireland" as a separate category. A NO vote indicates that you would like it to remain part of Western Europe. An UNDECIDED vote indicates that you would like more discussion on the topic before you make up your mind.

Note that this vote and the vote in >59 RidgewayGirl: may need a run off vote at some point if there isn't a clear decision made with this round of voting.

A YES vote indicates that you would like this GeoCAT to put more emphasis on reading from a variety of places, especially those places and authors less read by Western readers. A NO vote indicates that you would not like to see less emphasis placed on countries like the UK or US. An UNDECIDED vote indicates that you would like more discussion on the topic.

A YES vote indicates that you would like three months to be dedicated to different parts of Asia, a NO vote indicates that you would like to stick with two months. An UNDECIDED vote indicates that you would like to discuss this further.

Please note that UNDECIDED is more an indication that you'd like to have everyone discuss a topic further. Please raise any questions you have. And if you see there are people undecided on a topic you care about, please make your case. Hopefully, by the time it comes to tally votes, no one will be undecided.

Have I missed anything?

As the bulk of my reading seems to be set in the British Isles, The U.S. and Canada, I really don't need separate months for those areas and would be quite happy to have them all put together. Alicia May and I hosted the two Asia months last time and we both found it difficult as to division and the sheer amount of authors and books. I would like to see Asia divided into three groups.

Having read all the previous discussion about where Mexico should go, as well as the desire for less emphasis on the U.S. and Canada, I think I'd like to see a North America month. I would be more likely to choose a book about or set in Mexico than one set in the US or Canada that month.

Are we committed to keeping Polar Regions and Islands/Bodies of Water in some form? Because I'd be just as happy to add both another Asia category and a separate UK/Ireland category, replacing both of those.

OK, I'm throwing out a completely off-the-wall idea for how to use this CAT. It isn't conventional, at least not how we've been approaching it. And it would be harder to figure out, but I think it sounds more interesting than using the usual divisions. How about divisions based on geographic features? Like:

Polar climes
Deserts
Tropical/ Equatorial
Mountains
Coastal
Plains/Plateaus
Urban
Islands
Wilderness
Savannahs
River Deltas
Bodies of Water

I know. I'm reaching. But just thought I'd mention it.

Sorry, just catching up with this thread! I agree with those who would like three Asia categories, which I'm broadly envisioning as South Asia, East Asia, and North/Central Asia, which would include Russia and most of the former Soviet bloc countries. I also agree with those who would like to shift the emphasis of this CAT so it's a little more diverse, less Western-centric. Almost all of the books I read are by U.S. or British authors, so I'm hoping this CAT will encourage me to broaden my horizons.

If we use geographic features as suggested in #67, I think that one of the features should be rural if we are going to have urban. There are a lot of rural places. I'm not sure which I would replace. Or, if we want to keep all the others, perhaps change urban into urban/rural.

>67 majkia: That's an interesting idea. I think it might be tricky to find books to fit some of the regions because they're probably not used as tags very often and they won't show up in common knowledge fields.

Where was Russia the last time? We only had 2 Asia regions - east and south, right? So was Russia part of E Europe? It seems like E Europe was essentially the European Soviet bloc countries plus Russia. I think I'd like to keep that the same and carve a 3rd Asia region out of the old east and south. Central/SW is what I was thinking. The "stan's", plus the Persian Gulf area. The silk road.

Which would split the mid-east from N Africa, which lets us focus 2 full months on Africa.

>67 majkia: I kind of like this idea.

If we were to give this a try, I also agree with >69 sallylou61: adding in rural somehow, even if it is to just tack it on with urban.

A YES vote prefers the list in >67 majkia:. A NO vote prefers the list in >57 RidgewayGirl:. An UNDECIDED vote means that you'd like more discussion before making up your mind.

As with the other votes, this closes on the 25th.

The votes in >61 RidgewayGirl: and >62 RidgewayGirl: contradict each other!

We should also continue discussing whether we want our focus topics to be narrow or broad. If we choose broad, are we setting aside the idea of having a group read or two? What would the broad topics look like? If we want broad topics, would it make more sense to just have one theme that incorporates both region and focus? So if the South America month has something broad, like Latino Lit, could we just have one category - Latino Lit from South America? Why or why not?

I'll just put a brief "plug" in for basing the categories on geographical features. Just a simple reason, but the more I've thought about it, I think I'd like it just because it's something a little different from last time.

The votes in >61 RidgewayGirl: RidgewayGirl: and >62 RidgewayGirl: RidgewayGirl: contradict each other!

That's also what I'm wondering about. Having a separate category for UK/I, but at the same time have less focus on the western world will simply not work...

Regarding a third Asian category, I like the suggestion in >71 sjmccreary:, allowing broader reading in both Asia and Africa.

I think it might be easier to vote on a full set of categories. Perhaps we should develop three sets to vote on, one where UK is separate from Europe, one where it's not, and both showing the Asia and Africa divisions. We can also vote on the geographical features idea, which is a neat idea but might make it more difficult to find matching books. For that list, I'd suggest replacing river deltas with rural/agricultural.

>73 RidgewayGirl: I came up with this scheme mainly because I hate to see divisions based on past politics rather than some actual geographical/ethnic/etc differences. All those boundaries are so arbitrary and based on winners of wars rather than reason or choice by anyone.

And yes, rural should be there. At the time I was coming up with divisions, I was considering plains and savannahs to be rural but that might not always be true.

Also, yes, finding books might well be more difficult based on tags in LT. I just thought it was more interesting than going with the usual divisions.

Returning to the broad vs. narrow focus -- do we want to have focus topics at all? If they're really broad, is there value in having what will essentially be two themes every month? I would suggest we either have narrow focus topics, either looking at a current issue in an area or a specific group read, with the understanding that most people will just stick to the main theme. Or if we decide to do a broad focus, to then just have one theme combining both place and focus. Otherwise, we're all over the place.

If we do want to do the broad focus, might we be able to combine the regions list with the list in >67 majkia:? So a theme could be Cities in western Europe, or the deserts of North Africa. Would that be workable?

>77 sturlington: Good idea. Any list we choose could be altered, if necessary. Would anyone like to come up with a few potential lists?

>78 majkia: I like the idea. It would be a challenge to find books based on landscape, but we can all help each other. Will we then be all over the globe with our reading, or would we try to pick specific geographical areas to read about?

>78 majkia: Sure. I can see a month where we read rivers which might include the Nile, the Thames, the Yangtze (sp?) and the Amazon, for instance. We might find interesting similarities from otherwise assumed disparate populations. The same for mountains and deserts etc.

I like using regions a lot more than using landforms as the main divisions. Maybe some of the "narrow" focus themes could involve mountains, rivers, etc.

>82 majkia: I guess this depends on what we mean by "geography": physical geography or human geography. Personally, I'd think that themes based on physical geography would be really interesting. However, my guess is that most people voted for GeoCAT with human geography in mind. That is, they want to explore cultures associated with particular regions.

I do think physical features could be incorporated into a narrow focus topic in some cases. For example, South America could have the rainforest as a focus topic. South Asia could have mountains or a group read like Into Thin Air as a focus theme.

I would prefer the focus theme to be, well ... focused. So a focus theme of "mountains" for South Asia would be "mountains in South Asia" and not mountains anywhere in the world.

We could also divide by cultural regions, which is pretty similar to what we've already been talking about but the common grouping favors culture over geographical location. For instance:

Anglo-American (Canada and US)
Latin American 1 (Mexico and Central America)
Latin American 2 (South America)
European
Slavic-Russian
Islamic
Sub-Saharan Africa
Indic
Sino-Japanese
Southeast Asian
Anglo-Australian (Australia and New Zealand)
Oceanic (islands, oceans, polar regions)

PS I think Indigenous Peoples would be a good focus area for either or both of the Anglo regions (American and Australian).

In general, I agree that focus areas should be narrow and should help with the overall goal of diversifying our reading.

>85 sturlington: I like that a lot.

>85 sturlington: Interesting! If this option is not adopted this year, we should consider a CultureCAT next year.

>85 sturlington: I like that too. When I was coming up with alternative ideas, I considered ethnic divisions but there are so many! You broke them down well though, and I like focusing on indigenous people although I doubt I could participate in too many of those focus groupings due to a need to read off the TBR.

>85 sturlington: I like this too!

>85 sturlington: I like it!

You know, we're trying to narrow things down, rather than add to the choices...

So far, we have a few variations on the original break-down, the landscape division and the cultural division.

Let's wait until the current votes are counted (and keep discussing!) and then come up with a few choices as to how we want things to look - a few variations based on the current voting, a landscape option and cultural option. Does that sound workable? We can then tackle the whole focus idea once we have the monthly categories set.

I like the notion of a cultural breakdown for next year.

The current votes are also contradictory in that we're voting to eliminate one category (merging polar regions/islands) while adding two (UK/Ireland and another Asia).

>94 _Zoe_: I've pointed that out. Ideally, people will go back and choose one or the other, but not YES to both. Otherwise, we'll simply have to vote between those options. Or remove N. America, which is annoying for completists, but I suspect every single person here has read a book by an American author in the past twelve months.

>95 RidgewayGirl: That's why I think we should redo the voting based on complete lists. I proposed one in >85 sturlington:. Maybe a couple of other people could propose lists as well to vote on based on how they would like to see the regions divided.

>96 sturlington: Let's see what happens in the voting and put up new options then. It's only a few days away. I'll pull together a few choices based on the original list and how the vote went (since it looks like people are voting for contradictory things) and then majkia's option and yours (and any new options, of course).

Let's use the time to fine-tune your option and majkia's, answering questions and figuring out how it will best work.

>85 sturlington: I like this option. I like the way Europe was broken into Eastern and Western.

LOVE the cultural breakdown idea of sturlington's @ 85. I think it deserves it's own CAT next year.

>95 RidgewayGirl: Sorry, I thought you had only pointed out that "less western" conflicted with "add UK/Ireland".

There are also 10 other categories that could be compressed to make room if we ultimately voted to add two new ones; it wouldn't necessarily have to be North America that was eliminated.

I'm starting to agree with >96 sturlington: that it might make more sense to vote on complete lists.

>99 countrylife: When you guys say next year, do you mean that you would like it be brought up for voting in 2016 as consideration for a CAT to hold in 2017? Just trying to clarify. :-) If so, that's fine by me. If you like, I could take my list out of consideration and we could refocus on tweaking the original geographical categories.

>84 mathgirl40: I think you could still read about different cultures based on those who live on or by the Amazon River, for instance. (Or a desert, or the mountains, or the savannah...)

But, I do see what you're saying with people voting with human geography in mind.

>95 RidgewayGirl: And I use N. America to read a Canadian book. :-) I am Canadian, but most of my reading doesn't take place here. I use that one to help me read more Canadian stuff!

>101 sturlington: for me, it means in 2017.

>101 sturlington: When I originally mentioned it, I was referring to the 2016 selection for the 2017 reading year.

I really like the idea of geographical features or cultural because that would be different than what we did just two years ago.

I am opposed to having cultural or landform defined themes. Too hard to find books to fit. Would make for an interesting class or other guided reading, though. But more work than I'm willing to do on my own.

I also still don't like the combination of polar regions with islands/bodies of water. What does Antarctica have in common with Jamaica? Or Siberia and the Amazon? If there isn't room for both, then get rid of one of them. We wouldn't combine Western Europe with Subsaharan Africa, would we?

>107 sjmccreary: Maybe it would be helpful to set up polls on flat-out eliminating polar regions and islands/bodies of water? I think one of the motivations for combining them is just to give them less attention and make room for other new categories.

I don't think we should eliminate any regions unless we want to rename it SortaGlobalCat. ;-)

I'm not crazy about having the Polar regions, islands and bodies of water mixed into a category - it's just too broad. I don't think it will generate interesting discussion because the areas are just too disparate.

>85 sturlington: Where would Israel fit into your cultural category list?

>109 streamsong: So the cultural suggestions as I originally proposed them are meant to still conform more or less to geography but not necessarily strictly to traditionally drawn regional lines. In other words, it acknowledges that there is some overlap culturally between the Middle East, North Africa and into Asia, and that there is overlap between Eastern Europe and western Asia. It also opens up reading to people in diaspora, if we want it to. There seems to be some agreement as to putting off a cultural categorization until the selection round for the 2017 CATs, which would allow for more time and discussion to hash it out.

How important is it that the entire globe be covered? Is it, as >109 streamsong: suggests, intended to be a GlobalCAT or is it that we want to read about different places around the world (but not necessarily every place)?

Personally, I would be okay with eliminating the polar regions as Inuit /Eskimos could be included in Canada (or even the US via Alaska) and there are no native people in Antarctica. But my interest is in reading books written by people native to the area/region rather than books written by American or British authors set in exotic locales. I know others have different goals for this CAT which is why I raise the above question.

There are some very interesting accounts of polar exploration that I would like to get around to reading ...

At any rate, the suggestion of putting up three or four variations of what the GeoCAT should look like and then voting seems a sound one.

Yes, sturlington, I also meant for 2017. Yours is too good an idea not to have its own CAT.

>111 leslie.98: : To my mind, it doesn't seem like this NEEDS to be a GlobalCAT. I'd be fine with eliminating something to focus better on something else. But I don't have strong feelings either way.

I'm actually more interested in human geography than physical geography than about geographical features so I'd like to consider >85 sturlington: as one of our 2016 options. I wouldn't miss the polar regions at all. I had a hard time coming up with just one book I wanted to read about them last year and I don't relish doing it again. I'll probably skip that month this time around if it's included.

>114 cbl_tn: ITA

I would also like to have the arrangement in no. 85 made by sturlington considered for this year instead of waiting until next year. I agree with the points made by cbl_tn in message 114. Also, the GeoCAT was voted in for this year; we might want to do entirely different cats next year.

I don't want to see islands go away. I'm okay with missing the polar regions.

>107 sjmccreary:, >109 streamsong: I'm also not happy about the combining of polar regions and islands/bodies of water. But I'd take a combination of the two over no polar regions at all. Polar regions is one of my favorite geographic regions.

>118 VioletBramble: ditto

Why not combine the Arctic with N. America and/or wherever Russia ends up (Europe or Asia) and the Antarctic with S. America? Alternatively you could make an argument that since the polar ice sheet in the Arctic does not rest on land it belongs with islands and bodies of water.

>120 Robertgreaves: That sounds good to me.

No matter how we divide it, we only have 12 months and we may have to start thinking about what we can live without instead of what we can add.

I know the voting hasn’t closed yet on our first set of votes, so I hope I am not too early in putting this together but looking at the last set of votes, the majority of people seem to agree we need to make a few changes from our 2014 setup. The majority vote was for Australia and New Zealand to have their own month, that Asia should be divided into three, and while many seem to think that Islands, Bodies of Water and Polar Regions should be grouped together there are a few who do not.

We are fairly evenly divided about giving the British Isles and Ireland their own month. Since we can't have it all, I am going to try and list all the options that have been given to us so far so we can eyeball the choices.

Option #1 - Geographical Regions with British Isles and Ireland having a month and Asia having two months

* Canada & The U.S.A.
* Central America & Mexico
* South America
* The British Isles & Ireland
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Middle East and Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* South Asia
* East Asia
* Australia and New Zealand
* Polar Regions, Islands and Bodies of Water

Option #2 - Geographical Regions with British Isles and Ireland included in Western Europe and Asia having three months

* North America (Canada & the U.S.)
* Mexico and Central America
* South America
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* Central Asia (The Silk Road)
* South East Asia
* Far East Asia
* Australia & New Zealand
* Islands, Bodies of Water &
Polar Regions

Option #3 - Cultural Regions

* Anglo-American (Canada and US)
* Latin American 1 (Mexico and Central America)
* Latin American 2 (South America)
* European
* Slavic-Russian
* Islamic
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* Indic
* Sino-Japanese
* Southeast Asian
* Anglo-Australian (Australia and New Zealand)
* Oceanic (islands, oceans, polar regions)

Option #4 - Geographical Features

* Polar climes
* Deserts
* Tropical/ Equatorial
* Mountains
* Coastal
* Plains/Plateaus
* Urban/Rural
* Islands
* Wilderness
* Savannahs
* River Deltas
* Bodies of Water

Option #5 - Geographical Regions with the Artic being added to North America and Antarctica being added to South America

* North America (Canada, the U.S. and the Artic)
* Mexico and Central America
* South America including Antarctica
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* Central Asia (The Silk Road)
* South East Asia
* Far East Asia
* Australia & New Zealand
* Islands and Bodies of Water

Does anyone have any other options to add? We probably will still have to tweak any of the above options, but at least this gives us a place to start seeing how the GeoCat could shape up. I think once we have an idea of how the Cat will look, we can then think about what the various focus challenges will be.

Thanks for putting that together! Here's one more:

Option #6 - Geographical Regions with British Isles and Ireland having a month and Asia having three months; Polar Regions split between Canada/US and South America; Islands/Bodies of Water omitted (essentially scattered about according to geography)

* Canada, U.S.A., and Arctic
* Central America & Mexico
* South America including Antarctica
* The British Isles & Ireland
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Middle East and Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* South Asia
* East Asia
* North and Central Asia
* Australia and New Zealand

Option #6b - Same as above, but with Oceania added to the Australia/New Zealand month

* Canada, U.S.A., and Arctic
* Central America & Mexico
* South America including Antarctica
* The British Isles & Ireland
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe
* Middle East and Northern Africa
* Sub-Saharan Africa
* South Asia
* East Asia
* North and Central Asia
* Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania

>108 _Zoe_: Polls, definitely! I understand the motivation, but if people are not that interested in one or the other or both of these two "regions", then why not leave them out this time?

>109 streamsong: I'm not sure what you are advocating for here. You don't want to eliminate any regions, and yet combining them dilutes them and they become too broad and the discussion will be lacking. It's not "GlobalCAT". The last time we did GeoCAT, we covered every inch of the planet. If we want to take closer looks at some areas this time, that will necessarily come at the expense of other areas.

>118 VioletBramble: I loved the Polar Regions last time, too, and would rather eliminate islands - which seem easier to combine with their nearby major land masses.

>120 Robertgreaves: Because Antarctica is not part of South America and has little or nothing in common with South America. It makes more sense to combine Eastern and Western Europe.

According to the way the voting stands right now, people want a separate month for Britain/Ireland, and 3 Asia months. That's 6 months just for Eurasia. Add one for Australia/New Zealand, 2 for North & South America and 2 for Africa. That only leaves 1 month left. I say choose Islands OR Bodies of Water OR Polar OR something else, let's don't just have a mish-mash of all the left-overs. Be decisive - choose one and let the others go.

Some important posts were made in between the time of my last screen re-fresh and my own post.

So I'll restate my suggestion in the same format:

Option #7 - Geographical regions in accordance with current popular vote:

* North America (Including Mexico)
* South America (Including Central America)
* Ireland and British Isles
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe and Russia
* Eastern Asia
* Southern Asia
* Central Asia
* Australia & New Zealand
* Northern Africa
* Southern Africa
* Region to be determined from these choices: Polar regions, Islands, Bodies of Water

I would go for Option 6 but add Oceania to Australia and New Zealand.

If we remove Bodies of Water, I think it makes sense to return to Oceania, instead of just NZ and Australia.

I've added a 6b with Oceania included in the Australia/New Zealand month.

>124 sjmccreary: I'm just looking for a way to split them into categories without losing the common thread between countries to encourage discussion.

In my mind, at least, the Arctic and Antarctica have more in common with each other than the regions they are paired with in some of the options so I hate to see them split into different catagories. Seven nations (US, Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia) have territory above the Arctic Circle, so it's not the best fit with North America.

I guess that of the options presented, combining them with islands and oceans at least keeps the Arctic and Antarctic areas together.

>129 streamsong: re: Arctic countries: US & Canada fit with North America; the others fit mostly with Europe.

>130 thornton37814: Yes, I thought about that, but I think the polar areas may have more in common with each other than with more southerly cities in the same country. Prudhoe Bay versus Miami.

And it would still leave Antarctica out of the mix.

Hmmm, perhaps a 13th optional (dare I say floating ?) year long category for islands, polar regions, oceans which would not eliminate them altogether but would open up another monthly slot .....

why do we need three asias? we don't have three africas.

Asia's pretty big, majkia. And we have plenty of categories consisting of just two countries. Proportionally, we're still short-changing Asia and Africa in favor of anglophone countries.

Personally, I'd like more categories where there are non-anglophone options. Australia and NZ, USA and Canada, and UK and Ireland are all months which don't push me to read anything different from my usual at all.

>133 RidgewayGirl: I wouldn't mind combining all the Anglophone countries into one month myself. I think we could easily divide Africa into three, or give the Caribbean a month. Of course, there are so many possibilities, we're in danger of not deciding!

It seems to me that some people have areas thay feel should be covered and others don't. I am going to suggest something totally different What about assigning each month a couple of letters. Yes I know some months would have three... and a person could pick a country that begins with that letter? That way if you want to get away from so much US/Anglo reading you could opt for Uganda or Uraguay instead of the US, and China instead of Canada, etc. That way each person would read 26 countries instead of twelve, a much more comprehensive global coverage. And if that is too many books we could say that if you read 1 of the letters for the month (12) like you would be reading otherwise, you have met the challenge?

>135 mysterymax: What an innovative idea! And completely different to the Geo challenge of 2014. I'd vote for that!

is there a country that starts with X?

ETA: other than that a great idea.

>118 VioletBramble: I agree (though it's not one of my favourite regions, but I do enjoy reading about the exploration and such). I'd rather see the combination of islands and polar regions than taking out polar regions altogether.

ETA: I replied before I saw the multitude of other options that have been suggested!

I have another suggestion. How about we vote on whether or not we do geographic areas vs cultural areas vs geographical features vs the alphabetical countries. If we decided on any that aren't geographic areas (although based on comments, I do suspect we will go with geographic areas, but best to vote to decide for sure), THEN once that's decided, assuming we do go with geographical areas, we come up with different variations on that and do a separate vote for those?

Just a thought.

Well since there are more than enough letters to go around X could be skipped - or -

Xiushan - an island that belongs to China

Xi'an - city in China (site of the Terra Cotta Army

Xanth - fictional country created by Piers Anthony

I like the alphabetic idea!

>138 LibraryCin: I think that is a good first step.

I like the alphabet idea! Of the geographical lists, 6B and 7 appeal most to me. While I think the physical landscape categories are interesting, my goal is to read books from different languages so that wouldn't work very easily for me; this goal also makes me not that interested in having the UK/Ireland separated from the rest of Europe.

I'm not so fond of the alphabetic idea myself. One aspect of the CATs that I enjoy is discussing common themes and getting recommendations for books similar to or related to the one I'm currently reading. I would miss that part of the GeoCAT if we were to choose countries based on their names.

I agree with >138 LibraryCin: in that we should have a vote on the format that our 2016 GeoCat is going to take and then we will have a better idea of where we are going and how to get there.

>137 majkia: X could be for xenophile. Read about a place you don't live/usually read about/etc.

Xanadu?

Wouldn't using the alphabet idea be an awful lot like an AlphaCAT which only a very few wanted?

>147 hailelib: Not if it is the initial letter of a place, not a book title or author.

I still see it as an alphabetical type ...

Anyway, we'll have to see how the current round of voting turns out and if there are still more suggestions to consider.

I'm not very excited about the alphabet idea, either, for the same reasons as >143 mathgirl40:

I really like the idea of fostering discussion and this seems like everyone would be reading very different books.

>129 streamsong: I agree with you that the Arctic and Antarctica have more in common with each other than either have with anywhere else. Which is how we ended up with a Polar Regions in the first place. And which is why I'm opposed to lumping them together with random other places. As much as I loved the Polar Regions theme before, I'd rather leave it out this year than shove it in with something else, or break it up and scatter the bits and pieces.

>133 RidgewayGirl: >134 sturlington: Originally I was opposed to the suggestion of combining Ireland/UK with Canada/US. But you make an excellent point and I've changed my vote on that option. I'm a little less willing to include Australia/NZ in the mix, since I don't read much from that area normally, but I'd go along with it.

How about:

Option #8: Geographic regions which minimize Anglophones

* UK/Ireland/US/Canada/NZ/Australia
* Mexico & Central America
* South America
* Western Europe
* Eastern Europe and Russia
* Central Asia
* Southern Asia
* Eastern Asia
* Northern Africa
* Southern Africa

plus 2 of the following, subject to vote:

* Islands & bodies of Water
* Polar Regions
* African interior
* Caribbean
* (other suggestions?)

Even though we are still in the thick of deciding major themes, is it too soon to begin thinking about focus topics?

I kind of liked the system we used last time - where each month's leader presented 3 choices for focus topic to be voted on by everyone. Generally, one was a very narrow focus, one less so, and one quite broad although still within the bounds of the overall theme for the month. The problem with that is that in nearly every case (or maybe it was every single time) we voted for the broadest, easiest topic. But, if the monthly volunteers were to present us only with narrowly focused topics, we would have to choose one of them.

I also like the idea of a few group reads in place of focused topics, but don't have a good idea about how to choose which months those would be. Maybe several of the monthly leaders will suggest a group read as one of their focus topics and we will conveniently choose only 2 or 3 or 4 evenly spaced throughout the year.

>138 LibraryCin: Yes, this seems the simplest approach.

Note to everyone -- these new ideas are great! But since we do eventually have to move forward, please post your new ideas on how to break down the GeoCAT TODAY. Your new idea tomorrow will be ignored, as voting will have begun. So if you've been fiddling around with a way to do this, but feel it isn't quite ready to bring up here, you have to either bring it up today or keep it for another year.

The vote tomorrow will be on which general format, with the winning option then being broken down again into various versions which will be voted on. Please ask yourself a few things as you decide which option appeals to you:

What are your reasons for being interested in the GeoCAT? Just for fun, to help you with your tbr? To expand your reading horizons by reading books you wouldn't normally? Something else?

Do you want more discussion in the month's threads? Or do you just want to list your book and move on?

Are you interested in any sort of focused sub-theme? How do you see this working with the option you like best? Why do you want/not want a focus theme?

So far, for options we have:

Alphabetical breakdown
Cultural breakdown (see >85 sturlington:)
Geographical breakdown
Landscapes breakdown (see >67 majkia:)

>151 sjmccreary: I like this one! But let's vote on the format first.

So, first the results of the votes, then new votes and a discussion about what to do with what we've learned in the voting so far.

The vote on whether to make our focus topics broad or narrow was decisively inconclusive. A single vote separated those wanting a narrow focus from those wanting a broad one, with a number of people undecided. I'll come back to this.

We were largely in agreement in making this year's GeoCAT different from the last time we did the GeoCAT. People also strongly agreed that NZ and Australia should have their own month, and that the rest of Oceania should be lumped in with Islands and Bodies of Water, which in turn should be lumped in with Polar Regions. We were undecided on whether the UK and Ireland should get an entire month to themselves, but we did agree that we want this challenge to stretch our reading by focusing less on anglophone countries (the US, the UK, etc...) and more on countries we don't read about as often.

The next step is to choose from different formats for dividing up the world. The first is geographical, which is the way it was divided last time we did the GeoCAT and the method we've been discussing. Other possibilities have been suggested, and so we'll vote on which we want to use next year. For this vote, please vote YES to any option that you'd be happy with. Vote will remain open until October first.

While we are voting, please discuss the pros and cons of each option. Please don't add another possible format. Save that idea for when we're discussing the 2017 CATs. Let's flesh out these new options, so that we have a clear idea of what they might look like.

The winning option will then have a few month-by-month breakdowns, so let's work on what those might look like as we wait for the vote to finish. Don't forget -- you can change your vote at anytime, as long as you do so in September.

A YES vote indicates that you would like the world to be divided alphabetically, that is, that each month we will read books by authors from or books set in countries beginning with a particular letter of the alphabet, with two letters for each month. For example, in January we would read books set in countries beginning with A or B, and books written by authors from countries beginning with A or B.

A YES vote indicates that you would like the world to be divided by culture, that is, with each month corresponding to a cultural group of people, rather than a rigid delineation by country. Here is a suggested way that this might look:

Anglo-American (Canada and US)
Latin American 1 (Mexico and Central America)
Latin American 2 (South America)
European
Slavic-Russian
Islamic
Sub-Saharan Africa
Indic
Sino-Japanese
Southeast Asian
Anglo-Australian (Australia and New Zealand)
Oceanic (islands, oceans, polar regions)

This would allow the reader to read books by an author of a certain cultural background, a book set in a country where that culture predominates or even a book about a refugee or second generation immigrant from one culture adapting to another.

A YES vote indicates that you would like the world to be divided by large, geographical divisions, such as North America or Sub-Saharan Africa. The countries making up these areas will be clearly listed and the reader can read any book set in that region, or by an author from that region.

A YES vote indicates that you would like the world to be divided according to the type of landscape, rather than by the quirks of human geo-political borders. By using geographical features like:

Polar climes
Deserts
Tropical/ Equatorial
Mountains
Coastal
Plains/Plateaus
Urban
Islands
Wilderness
Savannahs
River Deltas
Bodies of Water

the reader can choose books set in these environments, regardless of where in the world they occur. So the month on River Deltas might see one reader reading a book set along the Amazon river, another reader reading a book about the Egyptian pharaohs and a third person reading a book by an author from New Orleans.

So, which of these options appeals to you? Take the time to think them over, raise questions, come up with ways to make each work best and discuss potential pitfalls. Again, voting continues until September ends and you can change your vote.

I was initially sort of in favour of the cultural breakdown, but on further thought I'm afraid it might just prioritize more prominent cultures or those that are more familiar to the west. For example, Sino-Japanese rather than Eastern Asia means that Korea is excluded, and Anglo-American and Anglo-Australian de-emphasize indigenous peoples.

Zoe, those categories were just a starting point. Given that we did clearly want to shift our focus to less prominent cultures, it would be reasonable to alter this list to one that better allows that. Do you have any suggestions on changes you'd like to see?

>162 RidgewayGirl: I don't have any particular ideas, but I suspect that we'd always end up highlighting cultures that are more familiar to us, just because they're easier to think of.

Then let's start thinking of an alternate way of looking at this. I think that you're absolutely right that we end up going for the easy, familiar thing because it is easy and familiar and, well, the books are already sitting on the tbr, but a large number of people voted to say that they'd like the emphasis to not be on the easy and familiar.

I'll spend time this evening playing with how it might look. Would you (and everybody else who is interested) see what you can come up with? Even if it's just an interesting cultural grouping, we can build from that.

>164 RidgewayGirl: One of my first thoughts was that the Anglo-American grouping excludes Quebec. So then maybe an alternate grouping would be "La Francophonie", which would encompass a different combination of regions:



Then something about Aboriginal peoples.

I don't even know enough about East Asian culture to say what label would also include Korea along with China and Japan, or what other cultures are at risk of exclusion.

I like that!

I've come up with "Indigenous Peoples of the Americas" and "Hispanic Cultures of the New World" as my starting groups. Add "La Francophonie" to that and we're at three strong categories (meaning categories for which I can come up with several suitable books and/or authors off of the top of my head).

To be fair, and I say this even though I am the one who originally proposed the cultural grouping, we had a DiversityCAT in our original lineup and it didn't win. More people wanted a GeoCAT. My thinking now is that we should table the idea of a CultureCAT, whether based on language or other criteria, until 2017, when it can be proposed and voted on in competition with other ideas. So I'm leaning back toward geographical divisions, as it's simple and all-inclusive.

We could use the focus areas to hone in on cultural/ethnic/language diversity though. That seems like a perfect compromise to me.

>167 sturlington:

I like your idea of a compromise!

One thing that we could do is, regardless of the breakdown, focus on the indigenous people or cultural aspects of the selected areas.

ETA: I apparently missed >167 sturlington: when formulating my reply. I agree with the focus suggestion.

>167 sturlington: The format that people like best will win. But that's no reason to skew the odds by only having one fleshed out option.

I'd also like to get people discussing whether or not we want a focus topic to be added. We're evenly divided on whether we want something broad that everyone will participate in, or a narrower focus that will provide a challenge to those who need it.

I think that if we manage to come up with twelve categories that aren't about our usual reading, but that are about the larger literary world, then we won't need the focus topics. We might add a group read or two if there's a book a few people are interested in though.

I like the idea of a focus topic. I would leave the choice of topics to those who have better ideas than me. What would interest me is something like population issues in the area containing China, for instance.

I'm really in favor of the broad topic with the optional focus within that broader area.

>170 RidgewayGirl: Why don't we leave it to the host for each month to determine the focus topic, or to decide not to have one at all? The host can, of course, solicit opinions ahead of time, ask for a vote, or whatever helps in the decision making. If the focus topic is announced a few months in advance, that would be convenient. That way, broad topics, narrow topics, group author/book reads, can all be considered. Different types of focus reads might make sense for different monthly themes.

>173 mathgirl40: That sounds good. What does everyone think? Would it discourage you from hosting a month, or make you more eager to do so?

I would be happy to host a month and try to come up with an interesting focus. I am sure that if I was drawing a blank I could ask for ideas from the group.

It would work for those of us who choose our books as the month begins. How far in advance would the plan ahead people need? Are we talking about all the months being known in advance or a couple of months in advance?

That's a bit muddled but there are those who really plan ahead and I was just wondering how they would want it handled.

>176 hailelib: Good question. We'll have our monthly categories decided before the beginning of the year, so we can either ask everyone to have their focus ready before the year begins, or we can leave that for the normal time of posting the month's CAT. That would give those who like spontaneity something to look for while the planners will have the main CAT theme to allow them to plan. If we decide to have each volunteer choose their own focus theme, we can discuss this and vote on what we want.

I get less excited about the GeoCAT as we discuss it. I can already tell you that if we end up with 3 African months that I am unlikely to read books for every one of those months. I just don't enjoy African settings enough to read that many in a year. I love books set on islands. I can live without polar regions this go around. This may be a year that I participate if I feel like it that month and don't participate if the topic doesn't appeal to me. I think I've also made a decision to skip planning threads in future years. I think I like RandomCAT the best because the only group planning is to decide who is in charge that month.

I'd personally prefer to see focus topics decided by the group in advance.

>178 thornton37814: I understand the feeling. I am beginning to feel that the GeoCAT I want is the goal of reading about 12 different countries (excluding the US, Canada and England) during the year.

#180 by @mysterymax> you could select a few countries then use random.org to select only 12 of them.

#180. You can do that with the format we're talking about. Choose a country from each month's theme/region .

>167 sturlington: Well, I've come late to the vote and I see that the original idea of dividing geographically is going to be the way we go for 2016 (as I figured it would), so I'd love to see a CultureCAT proposed for next year.

I agree that it does also sound like a nice way to focus.

>174 RidgewayGirl: I will say I'm unlikely to host a month for GeoCAT. It's the CAT I'm least excited about since we just did it last year and it appears that it will be going the same way (geographical areas). I will likely still participate, but in the broadest way possible, most likely (unless I'm lucky enough to have something on my tbr that happens to fit a focus).

I know that we were trying to do things differently for the 2016 GeoCat, but it does look like the geographical breakdown is the top choice. Perhaps we should do what we did in 2014 and ask each host to put forth a couple of choices for the focus topic of their region and maybe a couple of books for group reads and then have a vote which would give us either a focus subject or a group read for that month.

>178 thornton37814: That's how they're designed to be used, Lori. Our motto is CATs are optional and no one should ever feel any pressure to participate in a CAT or a month that doesn't suit their own personal reading challenge.

>179 _Zoe_: We'll vote on it. I'm leaning towards not having any focus at all and just enjoy each month's theme. But majority rules, and I think we'll all end up being fine with whatever emerges.

>180 mysterymax: Unless we all suddenly change what we want, you should be able to do that easily!

>183 LibraryCin: Yes, well, it worked well before and is the easiest to understand and to find books to fit. But it's good to at least take a look at other possible ideas and see if they appeal.

>184 LibraryCin: No one is under any obligation to host any months of any of the CATs. Some people think it's fun and some find it a horrible chore that reminds them of homework. Clearly, only the first group should volunteer! I would encourage anyone who has never hosted a month to give it a try -- maybe volunteer for the a month of the CAT you like the best. If you dislike it, you can at least say that you did your duty/gave it a shot. And you may like it -- there are quite a few people who volunteer over and over.

My entire reason for asking that question was to see whether people would be more or less willing to host a month if they were asked to come up with a focus topic. If that doesn't bother you, but you just aren't interested in volunteering, then don't worry about it.

>185 DeltaQueen50: That's another option. So far we have:
--no focus theme
--volunteer determines focus theme
--volunteer provides us three options on which to vote
--we all figure out the focus themes together

We'll get to that.

We've got time before the vote closes. If you're interested, play around with how to divide up the globe. Keep those for now, but as soon as the vote closes, we'll be moving forward quickly. I'd like to be done by mid-October for those advance planners and to give us time to relax before the 2016 Challenge starts.

>186 RidgewayGirl: I just think the process is making me LESS enthusiastic about participating PERIOD. It used to be something I enjoyed. It's becoming less and less something enjoyable to me -- and mainly because of the discussions, votes, etc. At one time, the geographic challenge would have been my favorite challenge, and I would have gone out of my way to find something. The discussions have knocked that enthusiasm out of me. That's why I will avoid planning threads after this year. It's too late this year because I've already seen them, and my enthusiasm has already gone for all but the RandomCAT.

I'm sorry to hear that, Lori. I'm actually enjoying these discussions. Perhaps its because I'm fairly new to the CAT planning threads, or because everyone has been friendly with their suggestions and opinions (I avoid threads with animosity entanglements). But I'm finding this as much fun as sitting around with the family discussing vacation plans.

>188 countrylife: I also get tired of this, but you're right, it doesn't get very contentious which is a giant plus.

I just find I really don't much care one way or another as these things drag on. I'll take whatever is decided and either participate or not, depending if the final challenge meets my needs.

>189 majkia: I agree - which is why I ended up only doing RandomCAT last year. Regardless of what gets decided, I will be doing GeoCAT with an Awards focus.

>187 thornton37814: I can understand that feeling. When I get "planning overload", I just stay away from the threads for a while and leave the discussions to others. I have enough faith in the group to know that the end result will be good, even if the decisions don't always align with my own preferences.

>188 countrylife: I agree. I'm really happy that this year's discussions have been carried out with a high degree of civility. That's actually pretty rare when a large group of people gather on the Internet to decide on any kind of matter. Kudos to RidgewayGirl for patiently guiding us through the process!

>190 LoisB: said: "Regardless of what gets decided, I will be doing GeoCAT with an Awards focus." Same here!

>191 mathgirl40: "Kudos to RidgewayGirl for patiently guiding us through the process!" Yes, a difficult job well done!

>191 mathgirl40: I agree!

I think that the planning process helps me to become more engaged with the end result - because I feel that in some small way I helped to shape it. The fact that it is long and drawn-out just means that we each have an opportunity to share our opinion about each point. It may seem weird, and please don't misunderstand or take this the wrong way, but I've missed the very spirited discussions we had the last 2 years. I don't miss the fighting and ugliness, of course, but having someone express a different opinion to mine, forcing me to think about a thing in a different way and try to defend my own ideas, helps to give me an understanding and appreciation for the diversity of our thoughts and feelings. Plus, just as in a novel, a measure of conflict makes things more interesting.

I would have been happy doing GeoCAT exactly the same as we did it before. I might not have been so eager this year if we had decided to base our monthly themes on physical landforms, or on specific cultures, but it doesn't appear that the majority of the group favors those options. I would be more willing to do some kind of alphabetic version, but that doesn't seem to be very popular either. I really like the geographical breakdowns. Even though we might choose different countries to read about, or time periods or genres, there will be similarities enough by focusing on the same part of the world that we can have a conversation comparing each of our "experiences". Three Africa's would be challenging, but since we tended to focus so much on the Middle East part of the "Middle East and North Africa" region last year, that really left only one month for the entire African continent. So I hope we will have at least two months dedicated to Africa next year.

I also like the idea of having a focus theme each month within each monthly region. I'm one of the "planners" so I would prefer that they be identified in advance before the year begins, just as the monthly themes will be determined in advance. If the focus themes are left to be announced each month when the threads are set up - similar to the way the RandomCAT themes are announced - then I will probably ignore them and just read according to the main regional theme. I am willing to host a month and to suggest a focus theme, either in advance or at the beginning of the month. I'm also willing to suggest more than one focus theme for popular vote, as it was done before, if that is what the majority of the group would like to do.

We should be done soon. And then we'll have a few months to rekindle our interest or to look through the tbr for likely reads. I love doing this, even if I only rarely read the books I plan to ahead of time.

Also, start thinking about what part of the world you wouldn't mind hosting. Please note that you aren't expected to have any special knowledge of that area, just an interest in putting together a few paragraphs on the topic. Although if it is an area you do have special knowledge of, that's great, too!

And if you don't want to host a month, don't worry about it. In the very worst case, you'll have me hosting more than one month, which will be a valuable lesson for everyone.

One of my categories for 2016 is for authors of color so this challenge excites me and will give me areas to focus on.

I would enjoy hosting a month. I would particularly enjoy Southeast Asia, an area which intrigues me and that I want to explore.

Today is the last day to vote on the format for dividing up the globe for the GeoCAT. Voting begins at post >156 RidgewayGirl:. Tomorrow morning, I'll open a new thread with the vote results and begin collecting suggestions for how to break that down into specific months.

I think we're pretty clear on the options for how the months should be divided. I'd like to then open voting on which of those we like by the weekend. So if you have a way you think it makes sense to divide things, please have it ready for tomorrow.

We'll also vote on whether to have a focus topic at the same time.