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 63 · DO #4199 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx2FF37_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Rockefeller–Rudolph, 1938–1956
Digital Object
DO #4199, page 63
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 63 ↗

Page transcription

UNIVERSIDAD DE COSTA RICA
ESCUELA DE FARMACIA
SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA

August 1, 1954

Dr. T. H. Goodspeed
Department of Botany
University of California
Berkeley, California.

Dear Dr. Goodspeed:

Thank you very much for your letter of June 8th., and for the draft
for # 120.17. I had intended to have the drawings ready to mail by this
time, but since they are not, I had better assure you that the work is in
progress, and explain the reason for the delay.

About the same time I wrote to you, I invited a friend, who works with
the Instituto Geografico Costarricencas and with the Interamerican Geodesic
Survey, to look my work over. He approved of what I was doing, but suggested
a number of improvements; also, he assured me that zip-a-tone screens would
adhere to the vynilite sheet in spite of rolling for mailing, which I had
read they would not. He also let me use some of their material, and I sent
for more zip-a-tone screens from the manufacturer's. So now I am erasing
gradually parts of the work done on the different color blocks, and substituting
with the screens, an improvement indeed but a slow process. But I would like
to make clear that, since this work could have been done from the first this
way, I have no intention of charging you for the time consumed in this substitution.
This is merely correcting the work, and I would be satisfied with the
better results obtained. All through June I was unable to work on the maps,
having hurt my hand moving our home to San Pedro.

Last month I took over a course in elementary plant physiology and
one in general botany. The plans for the departmentalization of the University
are now in full discussion previous to final approval. The treasurer of the
University has just given the ok to requests for botanical books to be bought
from three dealers in Europe, amounting to about $ 800; and I'm asking separately
for a complete set of Index Kewensis and Index Londonsis, which also has the
ok of the treasurer's office. We intend to continue to expand the Biology Library
fairly steadily. I have also been invited to join the editorial board of our
Revista de Biología Tropical, a modest publication but a serious scientific one.

With the best wishes to you and to your associates,

Rafael