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.

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Page 20 · DO #447 · 204_Popenoe_Bx33FF17r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Manual of Tropical and Sub-Tropical Fruits, 1920–1921
Digital Object
DO #447, page 20
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 20 ↗

Page transcription

CALIFORNIA CULTIVATOR
June 25, 1921

Book Review
MANUAL OF SUBTROPICAL FRUITS

"Manual of Tropical and Subtropical Fruits, Excluding the Banana, Coconut, Pineapple, Citrus, Olive and Fig," by Wilson Popenoe, agricultural explorer, United States department of agriculture, published by Macmillan Company, New York, for $5.00.

Wilson Popenoe has rendered a distinct service in gathering this great fund of information as to tropical and subtropical fruits. Among the hundred or more fruits discussed are the following: The avocado, which seems destined to become widely popular because of its high oil content; the charimoa and the sapodilla, neglected and delicious fruits for table use; the guava, the mango, the Chinese litchi, the breadfruit, the loquat, the papaya and the soursop.

It is a book of 474 pages, 16 chapters, a bibliography and a complete index. There are also 24 full plates including the frontispiece. Different chapters touch upon outlook for tropical fruit, avocado, mango, annona, custard, papaya, loquat, myrtle including the guava, feijoa and many other fruits now little known in California, litchi, sapote, kaki or Japanese persimmon, pomegranate, mangosteen and breadfruit. In addition each of these chapters touches fully upon various relations of the fruits under discussion. In the chapter on avocados there are four plates with many line drawings and nearly 70 pages of text. It is one of the most complete treatises on the avocado we have seen. It begins with the botanical description and then touches history, distribution of fruit, climate, soil, culture, cultivation, propagation, picking, packing and marketing. We believe the book may also be secured through F. O. Popenoe, Pasadena.