Sourcesand

Sourcesand is a fictional open-source framework designed to manage sources, provenance, and citations within digital content workflows. It is intended to unify bibliographic data with provenance metadata to support reproducible research, transparent authorship, and streamlined manuscript preparation.

Key capabilities include a central source registry, provenance graphs linking data items to their origins, and a citation engine that can render references in BibTeX, CSL JSON, RIS, or plain text. It supports importing sources from bibliographic databases, attaching provenance records to datasets, and exporting complete citations for manuscripts or data notes. It provides integration points for word processors, reference managers, and repository platforms, as well as both command-line and graphical interfaces.

The architecture is modular, comprising a core library, a storage backend, and optional clients. The storage layer supports local and remote backends, while the API emphasizes interoperability through standards and persistent identifiers such as DOIs and ORCID IDs. Plugins enable extensions for additional formats and publishers.

Origin and reception: the concept arose in discussions of reproducibility and scholarly communication and is presented here as a representative model rather than a specific product. In theory, sourcesand would be adopted by research groups seeking tighter integration between source management and citation workflows, though no official release or governance is assumed.