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 18 · DO #4172 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx1FF10_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Curson–Dietterle, 1948–1957
Digital Object
DO #4172, page 18
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 18 ↗

Page transcription

2079 Life Sciences Building
University of California
Berkeley, California
January 21, 1957

Mr. Ralph K. Davies
Suite 2040
111 Sutter Street
San Francisco, California

Dear Mr. Davies:

Last April Mr. Marshall P. Madison wrote you concerning his interest in and proposed support of a projected continuation of the South American plant exploration carried on, under my direction, during the past twenty years by this Botanical Garden.

At that time you indicated to Mr. Madison that should the project materialize you might care to aid in its financing. Therefore, he has suggested that I report to you on its present status.

As a result of Mr. Madison's generosity and that of certain of his friends and of grants-in-aid made by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Chicago Natural History Museum, the success, financially, of the proposed plant hunting expedition is assured. I plan with my collectors and assistants to leave for South America late this summer. We will be in the field in Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina until the spring of 1958.

In addition to securing scientific information, we will collect seeds, bulbs and cuttings of plants of potential agricultural and ornamental importance for California to be grown and tested in this Botanical Garden after the return of the expedition.

We will share with South American republics any information we obtain which has significance for exploitation of their native plant resources. In return they will cooperate with us in many ways.

The particular areas in which we will work have been selected on the basis of long experience in South American exploration. The enclosed reprint may have some interest for you. The map on page 81 shows routes of members of the five previous botanical expeditions and indicates how extensive our South American collecting has been.

Should you, at this time, feel that you would care to support my project I would appreciate it very much. From past experience I have learned that when an expedition is in the field in the highlands of South America unanticipated financial problems arise. Any addition to the estimated budget total for my work would, therefore, be very welcome.

With best wishes,

Sincerely,

THG:T
enclosure