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 80 · DO #4193 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx2FF31_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Nieto–O'Dette, 1946–1957
Digital Object
DO #4193, page 80
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 80 ↗

Page transcription

August 5, 1948

Mr. Franklin P. Nutting
1969 Broadway
San Francisco, California

Dear Dr. Nutting:

The records referring to the investigation of seedlessness in the Thompson Seedless grape which were made for you in the early 1920s have been put away so carefully that I have as yet failed to find them. You spoke to me some time ago about the possibility of your wishing to refer to some of the results. I think that most of the major ones I can recall quite definitely should you still care to have them.

I am enclosing reprints of a few of the articles which describe the progress of the South American plant exploration which I have been carrying on for the University since 1935. The Fourth Expedition was begun in 1946 when I was last in South America and has since been carried on by local collectors whose work was financed to the extent of $8,000 by a friend of the Botanical Garden.

Recently I was invited to be the President of one of the n sections of the Second South American Botanical Congress which meets for a week in Tucuman, Argentina early in October. The Congress will pay Mrs. Goodspeed's and my travel by air to South America and return and maintenance during the meetings. The University has granted me leave of absence to attend the Congress and to remain for an additional two months in South America to complete the work of the Fourth Expedition to the Andes. It has been carrying on plant exploration in critical and and botanically unknown areas in Peru and Colombia in order that the unique body of evidence already obtained by the first three expeditions shall become more complete. When these final results are secured this University will possess the most significant accumulation of material bearing upon the character and distribution of the floras of the Andes and adjacent regions ever brought together.

For the work I plan to do in South America this fall I will need local assistance because I am no longer able to undergo the strain of continued collecting at high altitudes or under jungle conditions. To pay such assistance $1500 will be required. On the possibility that you might be interested in furthering this aspect of the University's scientific endeavors I wish to ask whether you would be willing to make a donation to the University of all or a part of the sum mentioned.

With best wishes
THG:T
Cordially yours,