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The purpose of the study is to examine the emergence of Commons in the public libraries in the Free State in South Africa using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. The study examined the roles of the libraries and communities, the linkage of the new library with open access to knowledge, level of awareness of both users, and the community and administrators. Also, the study examined the role of library users and their communities in the maintenance of the new library. The study adopted a qualitative research design to study 16 community leaders and 17 library staff using an interview schedule. The interview schedule was developed following the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework, and administered by the researchers. Data analysis was conducted by a narrative approach to highlight the voices of the participants. Knowledge commons is emerging in the communities studied in a serendipitous manner; there is no formal national or regional policy that spells out what knowledge commons is and their entailments. There is strong evidence of community ownership and governance of human knowledge and other resources that are associated with learning and innovation in the communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]