The Librarian

published or submitted for publicatio

Capacity-testing as a means of increasing political inclusion

Some competent political actors, primarily young people and the cognitively impaired, are excluded from political participation by modern liberal democratic states. This exclusion occurs because the means utilized by states to distinguish between competent citizens (who must be included) and incompetent ones (who may be excluded) are imperfect. They include age restrictions on enfranchisement and, commonly, legal restrictions on enfranchisement for those with cognitive disabilities. Capacity-testing provides a means to improve on these existing mechanisms for exclusion. It is not, however, often suggested, nor seen as viable. Here, I argue that we should utilize capacity-testing to more effectively include capable citizens in our democratic practice. I defend a particular scope and kind of capacity-testing against common objections

Intrinsic flat convergence with bounded Ricci curvature

In this paper we address the relationship between Gromov-Hausdorff limits and intrinsic flat limits of complete Riemannian manifolds. In \cite{SormaniWenger2010, SormaniWenger2011}, Sormani-Wenger show that for a sequence of Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, a uniform upper bound on diameter, and non-collapsed volume, the intrinsic flat limit exists and agrees with the Gromov-Hausdorff limit. This can be viewed as a non-cancellation theorem showing that for such sequences, points don't cancel each other out in the limit. Here we prove a similar no-cancellation theorem, replacing the assumption of nonnegative Ricci curvature with a two-sided bound on Ricci curvature. This version corrects a mistake in the previous version of this paper (where we assume only an arbitrary lower Ricci bound) which was due to a crucial error in one of our supporting theorems for that argument.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

What Munn Missed: The Queensland Schools of Arts

American Librarian Ralph Munn\u27s historic tour of Australian libraries in 1934 is well documented. Along with Ernest Pitt, Chief Librarian of the State Library of Victoria, he spent nearly ten weeks travelling from Sydney and back again, visiting libraries in all the state capitals and many regional towns throughout the country. Munn\u27s trip was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was then, through its Dominions fund, turning attention to philanthropic opportunities in the Antipodes. The resulting report, Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for their Improvement (commonly referred to as the Munn-Pitt Report) is often credited with initiating the public library movement in Australia. [excerpt

Creative Downtown: The Role of Culture in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan

Examines how NYC arts groups and artists below Canal Street were affected by September 11, and possible actions the city, state, and private sector could take on behalf of arts and culture in rebuilding and revitalizing the downtown area