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 114 · DO #4190 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx2FF28_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Mirov–Munoz, 1932–1957
Digital Object
DO #4190, page 114
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 114 ↗

Page transcription

2079 Life Sciences Bldg.
University of California
Berkeley, California
March 22, 1957

Mr. B. O. Mulligan, Director
University of Washington Arboretum
Seattle 5, Washington

Dear Mr. Mulligan:

It was thoughtful of you to share with us seed of Rhododendron chlorops. We now have a rather knowledgeable chap responsible for our Rhododendrons and he has had considerable success in propagating other seed accessions.

I am directing a 6th expedition to South America from September of this year to March or April 1958. Primarily I want collections made in certain areas in Peru, Chile and possibly Argentina which should provide critical evidence on some of my postulates concerning factors responsible for Andean plant distribution. In addition, I propose to place some emphasis upon introduction of new or little known species of potential ornamental value for California and northward.

The expedition has been financed from donations by interested individuals and by grants from scientific institutions. The latter involve commitments to collect herbarium material primarily in Peru and northern Chile. I very much want to have extensive collecting done in southern Chile from which area, as of course you know, a considerable number of woody ornamentals were long since introduced into cultivation. Such contact as I have had with that region over the last twenty years rather strongly suggests that still more valuable introductions will come from it -- in particular from the little explored and isolated Araucaria forests on the coastal mountains and the unique area further south which contains subantarctic relic species.

Is it possible that you are in touch with someone who is sufficiently interested in plant exploration and of sufficient means to make a donation of $2000 to extend my EspédiAmerican project to include intensive collecting in southern Chile? It would be understood that seed or other propagative material of all potential ornamentals importance for the Pacific North West would be made available to a designated individual or institution there.

Donations to the expedition fund are made to the Board of Regents of this University and thus subject to income tax exemption.

With all good wishes,
Cordially,
THG:T