Community currencies have gained a lot of public attention over recent years. Social scientists studied the development of different varieties of these systems from different angles.

This bibliography is a contribution to the academic infrastructure of community currency research. We are institutionally linked with the different parts of this infrastructure – for details see the section “Our Network”. This collection of literature has been specifically designed for those pursuing an academic interest in this field. This is a bibliography with annotations, i.e. short descriptions, keywords (called “subjects”) etc. The major part of this project is a databank. You can give it a first trial by using the search box at the side bar. Under “Databank” you will find a number of possibilities to carry out differentiated queries. The FAQ section offers a short introduction in how to make best use of these tools.

The major objective of this project is to present a comprehensive collection irrespective of the language or the theoretical background of the author(s). At this stage, the editors have to admit that it is still a long road towards achievement of this objective. The “Principles” section outlines the criteria applied by the Editors when choosing titles for this bibliography. The restricted scope of this collection has allowed us to reach a high level of density – the databank reflects the huge variety of community currencies, some of which are rather unknown. This approach implies that users might miss certain titles in the databank they consider to be relevant. These may be books or articles, which do not cover community currencies directly, but are important for many authors in this field. A small selection of this Background Literature is available in a separate section of this website. The link section is a gate to other facilities in the area of community currency research. It also provides access to scholarly and “grey” literature, for instance, small, non-academic journals. This is not a general link list about community currencies. Considering the diversity of community currencies and the variety of different approaches in this field of research users should not expect to find all and everything in one collection.

We invite the users of this bibliography to make contributions – information such as sources that might be included as well as comments about the existing structure are welcome.