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This study was aimed to examine emerging knowledge commons in the public libraries in the Thabo Mofutsanyane District in Free State, South Africa.

A triangulated sample survey was adopted to collect data from the users of the commons using a questionnaire, and data of community member and the library officers were collected using an interview schedule. The study was guided by Hess and Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework.

The librarians and the commons users recognise the changing nature, roles and services of the libraries without necessarily attributing the changes to the emergence of knowledge commons. Users viewed the commons by the learning opportunities offered by information and communication technologies. They were, however, willing to contribute their resources to boost and enrich the commons; their contributions presently take the forms of volunteering of their knowledge and skill through offering of training sessions to users of the commons. A critical aspect of the commons, namely, participation in the governance and management of the commons resources appears not to be occurring.

To adequately build knowledge commons in the libraries will require formally introducing knowledge commons in the libraries, doing a systems analysis, deciding on the content and their sources, drawing up a programme for nurturing the system including training of relevant staff and then providing basic infrastructures.

This study used quantitative approach to deploy the institutional analysis development Institutional Analysis and Development framework in the study of public library institution. Studies on knowledge commons in public libraries have not been found.

Based on the information commons service model, the aim of this article is to propose a new model for knowledge commons. It seeks to define the conceptual model and constructing framework of knowledge commons, which aim for a collaborative knowledge‐sharing environment to support innovative community activities of university library.

By analyzing the innovation activities of communities, infusing theories of knowledge management, collaboration and Library 2.0, the knowledge commons conceptual model is brought forward to improve communication, collaboration, sharing and conversation.

Since the innovative community is interdisciplinary and cross‐campus, the scattered research team and study group requires a library to extend the services to a logical system, while the virtual layer is to make this spatial decentralized and logically centralized system a reality. The core elements, namely information technology, organization and management, culture and spirit, make up the supporting layer, of which, trust and collaboration culture for innovation is important.

Research work and practice of information commons and library 2.0 have aroused a new round of the library service movement, while the knowledge commons conceptual model would provide steering for a knowledge sharing environment.

In this paper, the new model is based on information commons and assimilating the theories of knowledge management, collaboration and Library 2.0, intended to integrate digital library, physical resource, virtual resource and human resource into a whole. It is of great importance for the library to serve education and scientific research well.

The purpose of this paper is to survey how research data are governed at repositories in Japan by deductively establishing a governance typology based on the concept of openness in the context of knowledge commons and empirically assessing the conformity of repositories to each type.

The fuzzy-set ideal type analysis (FSITA) was adopted. For data collection, a manual assessment was conducted with all Japanese research data repositories registered on re3data.org.

The typology constructed in this paper consists of three dimensions: openness to resources (here equal to research data), openness to a community and openness to infrastructure provision. This paper found that there is no case where all dimensions are open, and there are several cases where the resources are closed despite research data repositories being positioned as a basis for open science in Japanese science and technology policy.

This is likely the first construction of the typology and application of FSITA to the study of research data governance based on knowledge commons. The findings of this paper provide practitioners insight into how to govern research data at repositories. The typology serves as a first step for future research on knowledge commons, for example, as a criterion of case selection in conducting in-depth case studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use made of the Research Commons during its first year of operation in an attempt to establish whether it actually provides a genuinely new and different service from the point of view of the end‐users, and whether a facility such as this could indeed be presumed to support research and enhance research output at the university.

Using Lippincott's assessment grid, an attempt was made to assess activities in the Research Commons according to the dimensions of extensiveness, efficiency, effectiveness, service quality and usefulness. Methodology was mixed, with quantitative and qualitative components that logged the extent and nature of the use of the various facilities in the Research Commons and sought to establish from stakeholder perceptions whether the services on offer are regarded as substantially different from those in the undergraduate Knowledge Commons and whether they are indeed seen to be supporting research activities.

It was found that a combination of numerical and qualitative measurements has yielded sufficient evidence for the drawing of preliminary conclusions. The evidence gathered demonstrates that the Research Commons, designed primarily as a site for the creation of new knowledge in the form of original writing by researchers at postgraduate and academic level, is indeed an advance on the well‐established “library commons” concept, and that its creation represents an instance of “parallel invention” – the “new creature” that the title refers to.

This paper provides a multifaceted perspective on the activities taking place in a new library facility and should provide librarians and researchers with evidence‐based insight into how meaningful research support may be provided to young researchers from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as part of an academic library service in a middle income country.