source_list.xlsx

What it is

source_list.xlsx is the canonical XLSX template for the bibliographic and archival source registry of an Extended Matrix project. It sits at the project root, next to the .graphml, and acts as the single point of truth for every source the graph cites.

Each row is one source — a publication, an archival document, a photograph, an analysis report, a 3D survey. Each source receives a project-local identifier (D.01, D.02, …) that:

• the GraphML’s Document nodes reference as their stable id,
• the DosCo folder uses as filename prefix (D.02_excavation_report_1979.pdf),
• EMtools and Heriverse pick up at import time to populate the rich metadata of every Document node downstream.

This three-way binding — graph ↔ spreadsheet ↔ DosCo files — is what lets you maintain a project’s bibliography in one place and have it flow into every downstream view (yEd, Blender, the web).

What the schema looks like

The 1.5 stable schema is a single sheet with eight columns: Name, Description, Url, Property that can validate, original id., Type, Preview, Notes. Open the empty template and hover the column headers for per-column help.

Full column reference and worked example: see the EM manual — Source List schema.

When to use it

• You are starting a new EM project and want to capture the bibliography upfront, before any nodes are drawn.
• You are migrating a legacy project’s sources into EM and need a consistent registry.
• You want every paradata chain in the graph to terminate on a citeable record with a stable id and metadata.

Compatibility

Get the template

Use the Download latest button at the top of this page — it fetches sources_list v.1.3.2.xlsx directly from the ExtendedMatrix repository. The legacy filename is kept stable so download links across all the version-tagged docs and external references keep working: the same 1.3 template is the supported artefact for EM 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 — the schema simply did not change across those releases. When EM 1.6 ships its revised two-sheet schema, a separate file with a cleaner naming convention will appear alongside (see DP-58).

The file is shipped as a populated template: 972 real entries from the Castrum di Segni / St. Peter’s Church project, kept in place so you can reverse-engineer the column conventions by reading actual archaeological practice rather than abstract column descriptions. A README sheet at the front explains how to use it for your own project — the short version is delete all data rows below the header, reset the IDs from D.01, and start populating with your own sources. Per-column help comments are attached to the header cells of the sources sheet.

How EMtools picks it up

In Blender, EMtools imports source_list.xlsx alongside the GraphML and the DosCo folder. The Document nodes in the scene’s stratigraphic graph receive their full metadata from the matching row in the spreadsheet — so the same D.02 identifier you typed in yEd is now, inside Blender, a Document node carrying its title, citation, “properties it can validate” list, and the DosCo file it points at.

The didactic story is: before the import, Document nodes show only their D.NN identifiers; after the import, they carry the full descriptive content from the spreadsheet — without any change to the GraphML itself.

How Heriverse exposes it

When the project is published to Heriverse, the Document metadata you captured in source_list.xlsx becomes the content of the paradata pop-ups that visitors see when they click on a reconstructed unit: the source citation, the validation chain, the link back to the archival reference. The same registry that drives Blender’s Document Manager drives the public web scene — no manual re-typing.

Manual & roadmap

• Source List schema (EM 1.5 manual) — column reference and worked example.
• DP-58 — Bibliographic & Archival Sources Template — design status of the 1.6 revision (two-sheet split, closed Type vocabulary, integration into em_data.xlsx).