Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

plant collecting and fieldwork in South America medicinal, culinary, or other traditional uses of plants chromosomes and plant classification early herbals and botanical illustrations botanical institutions exchanging plants, seeds, and specimens microscopy and photomicrography in botanical research How did botanists and gardeners introduce plants from one region to another? grafting, budding, and propagation of tropical fruit crops

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

← Back to results

Page 116 · DO #407 · 204_Popenoe_Bx30aFF8r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
R eport on the possibilities of fruit culture in Venezuela manuscripts and correspondence, July 1958–29 June 1960
Digital Object
DO #407, page 116
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 116 ↗

Page transcription

We would like to recommend that you consider taking a small area (perhaps
10 hectares) of this Caracolillo soil out of pasture, for a good variety collection
of aguacates as well as experimental plantings of numerous other fruit trees. This
would give you a permanent supply of propagating material which you cannot develop at
the present nursery site, with the exception of certain fruits such as mangos and gua-
yabos. I believe it would pay to include a citrus collection, also, for you should
have less trouble with diseases on the Caracolillo soils than on the stiff badly
drained clays.

As usually happens when new fruit varieties are introduced from distant regions,
it has been impossible not only at Macapo, but in practically all other places visited
by us, to avoid a certain amount of confusion regarding varieties. In some instances
it is almost impossible to straighten out this confusion. For example, if you put be-
fore me a half a dozen oranges, one each of half a dozen varieties which belong to the
Valencia group, I could not possibly, either by appearance or by taste, name all of
them correctly. Because of the danger of introducing tristeza disease, it is no longer
safe to bring propagating material into Venezuela from Florida or other regions. You
already have in this country most of the important orange varieties. You will have to
go ahead on the present basis with citrus, but with aguacates and mangos, in those
cases where there is reason for doubt, I would recommend that you obtain new propaga-
ting material from California and Florida where you are certain to get the varieties
under their correct names. Based on experience I cannot feel so confident of material
which comes from the West Indies or even perhaps from Colombia. I dislike to say this,
but the small extent to which grafted varieties of tropical fruits have been grown in
these countries, in comparison with extensive propagation of aguacates in California
and Florida, and the many mangos grown in Florida, make it obvious that nurserymen in
those regions must exercise care to avoid selling trees under wrong names.