Librarians looking to understand the open source library system (OSLS) movement should begin searching in their own backyard collections for a well written book by Steven Weber.  While Eric S. Raymond "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is often cited as an introduction to open source, Steven Weber's 2005 book "The Success of Open Source" provides a more contemporary view and analysis.  Weber includes a critique of Eric S. Raymond's landmark 1999 essay and has six more years of successful open source communities to draw upon for his study.

An important part of Weber's study is the communities around open source efforts, and dispells the notion that open source programming is a wild chaotic bazaar.  He notes how each is governed and sets direction and organizes contribution to the mission of the software.  This is key to library OSLS: the community must be organized and active, with a wide base of support but with clear leadership.