BBS: The Documentary Part 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cm6EFYktRQ) has some great interviews with Tom Jennings & co. on the beginnings, growth and decline of Fidonet.
"It just runs in spite of the idiots." (Tom Jennings)
"It just runs in spite of the idiots." (Tom Jennings)
For those that don't know, the BBS Documentary is something like 6 DVDs and has hours of well produced and documented material and interviews.
As a result, with a few exceptions like Jason Scott's textfiles, there was relatively little archived documentation/stories/archives about BBSs at the time and very little of that has survived. (BBSs pretty much all got shutdown at some point and there's very saved from discussions, especially outside of the relays.)