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 #4302 · 131_Fogg_Bx3FF4_r

Collection
John Milton Fogg Jr. (1898–1982) papers
Item/Folder
Langman, Ida K., 16 September 1940 – June 1957
Digital Object
DO #4302, page 2
Collection-level dates
1923–1981
Open PDF at page 2 ↗

Page transcription

Report on Libraries Visited May 1957 Ida K. Langman

May was a bad month for library work - too many holidays. First came Labor Day, May 1, then Mothers' Day, then Teachers' Day. Finally came the spring holidays which, in the University, covered the period from May 17th to June 4. Government libraries stayed open until May 24. I had put aside for checking Francisco Guerra's Bibliografía de Materia Medica Mexicana until near the end of my stay, because I had seen most of the material he lists. But I needed to go back to various libraries for material that I did not have (The Hemeroteca Nacional, the Secretaría de Hacienda, the Museo Nacional and the Secretaría de Salubridad.) Unfortunately the holidays arrived before I could complete the checking. Perhaps I can find the few remaining items in United States libraries. Unfortunately, too, the Sociedad de Geografía, in which I wanted to check some material, decided to close for at least a year - to recatalogue the library!

I was set to leave Mexico City by May 24, but since the libraries I wanted to see on the way home would be closed until at least June 3, I decided to use the time in Mexico City to try to see some of the private libraries I had heard of. In this I was quite successful and was able to keep working up until the very last day.

Escuela de Nutriología - small library; found some articles on Mexican plant foods.
Instituto de Fisiología - good collection, well catalogued, but nothing for my work. However, I talked with the director, Dr. Izquierdo, who gave me some of his articles relating to the history of medicine in Mexico, in which there are references to plants.
Escuela Médico Militar - excellent catalogue, but the only things of interest to me were some of the theses relating to plants.
Mexico City College - ditto
Instituto Lingüístico de Verano - sounds like a school; actually it is the headquarters of a missionary group which has taken upon itself, as part of its work, the preparation of vocabularies of the various groups with whom they work. Some of these vocabularies are quite detailed, with plant names.
Hospital General - good catalogue for the books, but there was not much there I could use. The hemeroteca, on the other hand, had been catalogued once and there were many magazines listed in the catalogue which I wanted to see. Unfortunately, the old catalogue was no longer being used and, according to the new catalogue, many of the periodicals I wanted are no longer in the library and no one seemed to know where they might be
Colegio de México - an association of scholars which maintains its own library. The emphasis is on history. It is well managed and well catalogued, but I fax found nothing there I did not already have. However, the librarian's husband, Lic. Fernández de Córdova, whom I had the good fortune to meet, is a specialist on publications from the state of Michoacán. He has promised to hunt up material I don't have and will have photostats or microfilms made of items I may want to see,
Banco de Crédito Agrícola - small library, no catalogue, poor service; but I did get to see the collection that the bank has been publishing recently on the history of various plants in Mexico.
Cámara Nacional de Comercio - publishes a weekly and monthly paper and I went through their complete file for occasional articles on plants by Julio Riquelme Inda.
Secretaría de Recursos Hidráulicos - finally located the office that had published various works on different parts of Mexico, with information on plants.