It occurs to me that of the 4 universities I have used, all 4 had open classrooms/lecture halls anyone could just walk into & learn, and all 4 had security mechanisms in the gym to stop people from using it. That says a lot about people's priorities.
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Some do let the public just come in (e.g. Cardiff advertises that), others make you prove you need to use their collection (e.g. Leeds, who do have turnstiles). Obviously the Bodleian in Oxford and the Cambridge University Library are strict about access too.
I feel like this is a pretty good example of missing the meta-level by excessive focus on object-level details. Most libraries allow easy access to randoms, opportunity to reading material is not a significant factor in inequality of learning, but due to inequality in interest.
