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An CHANG / The unity of freedom and equality in library rights system 061

focus on the realization of the vulnerable groups’ right that is the effort to realize the substantive
equality of the society. This effort is not aiming at realizing an absolute equality or egalitarianism
but to follow their own sense of mission to improve the overall level of library services, to ensure
that the vulnerable groups can use library resources freely and equally, and finally to guarantee and
confirm this freedom and equality in the form of system construction.

2.3.2 The dynamic balance of freedom and equality in the library rights system as an institutional
justice
Basically speaking, justice is an important measure for balancing freedom and equality; a society will
become unfair without either of freedom and equality. Justice is a chief virtue in social institution (Miao,
2012). All the issues which are related to the institutional justice turn out to be centered on dealing with
the relationship between freedom and equality, and a just system of the society must be the system of
the balanced freedom and equality. If a system prefers freedom, it will bring a great motivation to the
development of the society. Meanwhile, it will bring new social problems because of the laissez-faire
development. If a system prefers equality, it will focus on the processes and results in the development
of the society, but too much concerning about the equal result may harm the freedom. The institutional
justice must give the consideration to both the value of freedom and equality and then realize the
ecological balance of the social interests (see Figure 1).

Institutional
Freedom Equality
justice

Figure 1. Institutional justice is the intersection of freedom and equality.

As a country’s institutional arrangement, the library’s public welfare undertaking and non-profit
characteristics provide the justice for its existence. The development of the society cannot do
without the improvement of education level. As an important extra supplement of the educational
system, libraries uphold the service concepts of generalization, openness, fairness, justice and
sharing (Cheng & Pan, 2004), which are significant to balance the differences in education
caused by economic level, qualifications, abilities and social conditions, and will improve the
comprehensive ability of users fundamentally and change their survival and social status as well.
This function is more obvious for the public library.
That is to say, the library itself provides a kind of institutional justice that contains value
requirements for both freedom and equality. That is why the library rights system treats freedom
and equality as its own core issues. As an institutional arrangement of justice, the library rights