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 19 · DO #4596 · 116_Van%20Schaack_Bx9FF21_r

Collection
George B. Van Schaack (1903–1983) papers
Item/Folder
Ewan correspondence — Bicentennial Symposium & Socieities, 1974–1978
Digital Object
DO #4596, page 19
Collection-level dates
1918–1981
Open PDF at page 19 ↗

Page transcription

TRIARCH ... a Sustaining Member of the Botanical Society of America.

Known for over 45 years as a manufacturer of Quality Prepared Microscope Slides,
Triarch now also offers:
Live Cultures
Photomicrographic Transparencies
Bausch & Lomb Microscopes

Highest Quality at Low Cost!

For completely revised Catalog No. 16, write to:

TRIARCH INCORPORATED
P. O. Box 98
Ripon, Wisconsin 54971


Thomas Jefferson Purchased a Copy in 1805
Now the Same Classica Botanica Can Be Yours in Facsimile

ANDRE MICHAUX
FLORA BOREALI-AMERICANA

Original copies of Michaux's classic are extremely rare and expensive. This first flora and inventory of weeds of North America is once again available... an exceptional opportunity for libraries and botanists to enhance their botanical collections.

Originally published in 1805, this new, economically priced, two-volume set contains Michaux's descriptions of those plants discovered on various botanical expeditions throughout Eastern North America. Notable in its breadth of geographic coverage, this historic work includes the much honored drawings from the first edition which so beautifully capture the variety of species extending from the Bahamas and Florida to Hudson's Bay and from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River.

More than just a collector's item, Michaux's work will be of interest to all botanists.

Now Available
1803 (Reprint 1974) illustrated 736 pp.
2 vols. 84923 $42.50

Books For Fall
CALIFORNIA MUSHROOMS
A Field Guide To The Boletes
Harry Thiers
Includes, on microfiche, 54 full-color illustrations of each mushroom type.
Oct. 1974 illustrated 356 pp. 85337 $15.95

PITCAIRNIIDAE
(BROMELIACEAE)
Lyman B. Smith and Robert Jack Downs
(Flora Neotropica Monograph No. 14)
Oct. 1974 illustrated maps 704 pp.
paperbound 85249 $39.95

HAFNER PRESS
A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
235P Brown Street, Riverside, N.J. 08075

advertisement in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY, Sept., 1974