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 129 · DO #4601 · 116_Van%20Schaack_Bx9FF26_r

Collection
George B. Van Schaack (1903–1983) papers
Item/Folder
Ewan — Misc., 1958–1979
Digital Object
DO #4601, page 129
Collection-level dates
1918–1981
Open PDF at page 129 ↗

Page transcription

TULANE UNIVERSITY
College of Arts and Sciences
NEW ORLEANS 18

Department of Botany
18 June 1957

Dr. George B. VanSchaack
Missouri Botanical Garden
St. Louis 10

Dear George:

Since Dr. Morris is anxious to settle the information to be had from herbal sources, I'll take up the last letter first, and reply to your most helpful earlier one on ANNALS, etc., at a trifle later date. Incidentally, it is quite clear that we shall not be able to make Colorado late in July. Just now it looks like Destin, Florida, August 10-20th. Last week I had a good trip collecting in no. La. with another visit to the Singer Game Preserve; no copperheads, high water, tree frogs in thousands.

Dr. Morris is most grateful indeed for the work that you did on his behalf. He is a little puzzled because the Variorum ed. of Shakespeare's Hamlet mentions the Dodoens herbal, Lyte edition, in a rather confusing way. If you could make one more inspection for him, answering the same questions on identity of "long purples" and "dead-man's fingers" as sketched in my last letter, he would be extremely grateful. If the photostating of the two following items is convenient this would be fine, but your checking in the Lyte's Dodoens herbal was very useful.

The two other herbals which might be checked with profit are:
1) Turner, William . New Herball (London, 1562) or (London, 1568)
2) Gerard, John Herball (London, 1597). (do not bother about the posthumous edition).

I've seen the ms. of Dr. Morris's article and it sounds very interesting and with what he hopes may be contemporary botanical data it will represent an important little paper in Shakespeariana--he would smile at my enthusiasm.

All for now. We are bustling with some renovations--nothing that hasn't been sorely needed for a long time. But it does amount to some swim of memos and general corresp. lags.

Nests would want to join me in very best wishes,

Sincerely,
Joseph Ewan

I shudder to hear of a St Louis flood! did it affect your part of city? your catacombs ... horrendous thought!

Gerth van Wyk: D.m.f. O.m., L.p. Hyphm. or O. m.