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 100 · DO #4531 · 116_Van%20Schaack_Bx6FF19_r

Collection
George B. Van Schaack (1903–1983) papers
Item/Folder
Miscellaneous (1 of 2), 1945–1981
Digital Object
DO #4531, page 100
Collection-level dates
1918–1981
Open PDF at page 100 ↗

Page transcription

book. ( ) Here we have the beginning of the text portion, the first words of which are often used as the title, for the book had no title page. It was the author's intention that the book be illustrated entirely from live plants, but in the end only some one hundred of the more than 400 figures are from life. Here ( ) are a few photographed from copies of Mrs. Arber's book on herbals and other places. Compare this iris with that of a few minutes ago from the Herbarius Moguntinus. There is no doubt about the genus and not too much about the species. As Schoensperger copied it ( ), however, it was already much less definite. Note the mirror image resulting from the copying. When it finally appears in the Hortus Sanitatis of 1511 ( ) it is just barely recognizable. Or take again ( ) the picture of dodder in Schoeffter's edition, ( ) Schoensperger's edition, ( ) the Hortus Sanitatis of 1491 and later of 1511 ( ).

We should read at least a little of the text. ( ) Here is the Mayflower, lily-of-the-valley. The books says, 'The masters say that this plant has very fine smelling flowers, the leaves like those of plantain, but not so broad, rather longer. Platearius says that the mayflower is cold and dry in the second degree and that these flowers are better in their strength when the plant and its roots are better than the flowers ( - ?) Take of these flowers a half pound and put them in good clear wine and leave them there for four weeks. Then distill the liquid in a clembig five times. This wine is better than gold and whoever mixes it with six peppercorns and a little laundelwasser may for a whole month have no fear of a stroke!

As we take leave of the Gart der Gesundheit let us look ( ) at its famous frontispiece, as Schoensperger has printed it, showing the apothecary shop with its expounding medic and its pounding lackey. And finally ( ) we glance at the last leaf of the book which contains the so-called colophon, the statement of the printer giving the book's name, or other identifying phrase, the printer's name, the place and the date of finishing it. We see here: Gedruckt und volendet