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 34 · DO #4183 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx1FF21_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Jessup–Junge, 1939–1959
Digital Object
DO #4183, page 34
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 34 ↗

Page transcription

as best I can before sending them off to specialists. I thereby learn something
of the group firsthand, have the opportunity to check the specialists monograph
and evaluate his specific concept, and finally am in the position so that I
can demand a critical rather than a perfunctory final identification. I always
do this, even with such groups as the grasses, critical Compositae, etc.

You will understand, therefore, that just because I have named the plants I have
no objections to sending the plants on to specialists for final checking. Please
feel perfectly free to pass out named material, of any group, to any botanist
you think will be interested in the plants. If they has any suggestions for bettering
the naming note it end let me have it for checking. Ill send off a lot of the
plant to specialists eventually, but only after all the material is in hand.

I have one suggestion to make. When you sort the plants into families plan to
put the families into systematic (not alphabetic) order. The plants must be compared
in the herbarium. When naming a collection you get a table and then work in adjacent
herbarium cases. That means you want a block of related families. Consequently
the families must be in the same order as the families are filed in the herbarium -
i.e systematic order.

You have a fine lot of Compositae but altogether too many Senecios and an
unusually high proportion of Asters-Brigerons-Conzya mess. These I will probably
have to pass up. Cabreras may be able to do something with Senecio but God only
knows who can name the latter complex. Your lot of grasses is formidable.

I was disappointed with the few Astragalus, delighted with the grand lot of Sisyrinchium.
Weatherby had a fit over your big pile of exciting Juncus app. The ferns
pleased him also. Among the borages you got the first good specimen of Cryptantha
patagonica that I have seen. I feel I have met the species for the first time!

I send you our material of that so-called Streptanthus from Mollendo, along
with the first lot of unicates, as soon as I make out my last next week. The plant
obviously has nothing to do with the Californian plants.

With best regards, an all good wishes,