Chapter 3: Developing a Framework of Social Justice to Evaluate Public Libraries in Iran

The aim of the current research is to identify the appropriate criteria for examining the dimensions of social justice in the Islamic Republic of Iran (henceforth called Iran) public libraries and to briefly evaluate the status of public libraries with these criteria. For this purpose, a literature review of information materials related to five disenfranchised populations, namely, children, the elderly, disabled people, ethnic groups and minorities, and women, is carried out. This study utilizes a social justice framework, comprising specific evaluation criteria, to assess public libraries in Iran. Findings report the status of compliance according to the selected criteria in Iran’s public libraries with reference to the selected population groups. They also show that the level of compliance with social justice components in Iranian libraries is lower than average for the studied groups. In other words, social justice for the groups of children, women, minorities, the disabled, and the elderly has not been properly implemented in Iranian public libraries.