Abstract
Number of the university libraries open their doors to the general public increases every year in Japan, but this raises problems of staffing, facility and resources. Now more cooperation is required between different types of libraries.
Discussion for open door policy about these university libraries is one of the most important subjects today. In this paper, the author will examine and compare the situation about general public access to the university libraries based on 5 cases of the nationwide studies of national, public and private university libraries.
This discussion focuses on the following three points :
1) the causes and the purposes open door policy of general public access of each university library,
2) the content of services and its difference in each university library, and
3) the types of arrangement of the library for general public access and its successful implementation.
