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 2 · DO #4184 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx1FF22_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Just–Kerr, 1941–1959
Digital Object
DO #4184, page 2
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 2 ↗

Page transcription

February 20, 1947

Dr. T. K. Just
Chicago Natural History Museum
Roosevelt Road and Field Drive
Chicago 5, Illinois

Dear Dr. Just:

Recently Killip has suggested that I might get your reaction to
the problem of obtaining determinations for collections of
herbarium material now being made by our Fourth Andean expedition
in Colombia and Peru.

When I was in Colombia this summer I organized the collecting which
is going on in more or less botanically unknown territory southeast
of Medellin. Guitierrez is responsible for that area. Out of Cali
Cuatrecasas has been getting additional material. The Peruvian
collecting under Felix Woytkowski's direction has been under way for
a year. We have already received 350 of his numbers and an equivalent
aggregation is on the way. Botah shipments represent collections off
the highway between Huanuco and Pucallpa. Now Woytkowski is collecting out of Moyobamba on the Peruvian-Ecuadorian frontier.

Killip would be interested in naming the Colombian collections and
suggests that perhaps someone on your staff might care to handle the
Peruvian collections. According to Killip Standley will probably be
busy for some time with his Central American plants but there may be
others who would have time for our material In this whole connection
I wonder whether Cuatrecasas, after he has time to get adjusted,
might not take over both our Colombian and Peruvian collections. He
has already expressed a desire to determine the Colombian ones and I
am sure that Killip would agree that it would be most logical for
Cuatrecasas to do so in view of his proposal to be working with you
on his phytogeography of Colombia. He probably would not object to
working on our Peruvian plants also. This is only a suggestion and
you may have other things in mind for Cuatrecasas. It is understood,
of course, that apart from the unicates which would be returned to
this Herbarium a complete set of specimens would remain with the
institution making the determinations.

My last letter, dated February 6, from Cuatrecasas refers to his having
obtained authorization from the American Consulate in Bogota to
receive his visa and to arrange for a visa for his family in Buenos
Aires. He also says that he has received no reply to his letter of
December 4 addressed to Dr. Gragg. At my suggestion he wrote that
letter which contained a detailed statement of the herbarium and
other material which he proposed to ship to Chicago and proposals
concerning its ultimate disposition.