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 24 · DO #4183 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx1FF21_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Jessup–Junge, 1939–1959
Digital Object
DO #4183, page 24
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 24 ↗

Page transcription

September 7, 1939

Dr. Ivan M. Johnston
Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University
Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Dear Ivan:

Many thanks for your letter of August 19, enclosing the address of Ruiz-Leal. I appreciate very much the reprints you were kind enough to send, and they began to work out immediately.

I do not believe you have commented upon some proposals which we made with reference to distribution from here of small units of the South American collection, but I judge that you have the matter in mind because I have received a letter from Merrill suggesting that he would wish to buy duplicates of any material that goes to others. In this general connection, that is to say so far as the entire accumulation of herbarium material is concerned, I am proposing to turn the whole matter over to Morrison. I am giving him our accumulated correspondence since you began to cooperate with me on the first South American collections, and expect him to digest it and prepare a letter to you which will cover all present aspects of the situation. Some of the points he may mention may represent merely a restatement of conclusions which we have arrived at, but it might be well to have the full picture in mind. I simply must get rid of under certain responsibilities which, as you know, can be real even though somebody else is apparently doing all of the work connected with them. As I have told you, I like Morrison's attitude in general, and in particular he has rather intimate contacts with the Herbarium here, which is a matter of some importance, and he knows more about the South American collections as a whole than anyone else who was connected with the expedition. I will, of course, visa his initial correspondence with you, and you will, of course, feel perfectly free to write me rather than Morrison in any connection, if you so desire.

Since the beginning of the fall semester some weeks ago we have had to concentrate on the distribution work, but it is progressing rapidly. Morrison will outline to you what is available to go forward in your direction, etc. I think I mentioned to you the question of the importance of adding prints of the plants in the filed to the corresponding herbarium specimens. I believe that we have a very considerable number of such prints, but many of them, to me, are not very satisfactory, which is often the case with photographs of plants on their own native heath. In most cases, however, the character of the landscape, geology, etc., is rather well shown. The question is, would I be justified in going to the expense of buying the paper and chemicals to be used by a WPA photographer in making the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of