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 11 · DO #4777 · 231_Rogers_Bx5FF27_r

Collection
David James Rogers (1918–2007) papers
Item/Folder
Correspondence - NRC Comm. on Germplasm, 1977
Digital Object
DO #4777, page 11
Collection-level dates
1948–1977
Open PDF at page 11 ↗

Page transcription

B3--Page 2

propagate plants which they are willing to distribute to other institutions upon request. Lists of these are index semina.

There are other sources of plant material that frequently is not recognized as genetic resource conservation, but still provides a broad range of plant materials that would otherwise not be generally available. These are the commercial seed companies. Throughout the US, these companies provide many vegetables, fruits, flowering plants and curiosities raised for some particular interest, such as the sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica) the telegraph plant (Desmodium gyrans), the Venus fly trap (Dionaea muscipula), and many others. The seed companies are not interested in long-term conservation of genetic resources themselves, because their market demands new cultivars with differing qualities from time to time. They usually do not store viable seeds of those cultivars that are no longer popular. However, these institutions may maintain certain breeding stock which contains much of the genetic constituency of a particular cultigen, and thus, does maintain some of the genetic diversity for those species kept. However, this does not address the overall problem of conservation of genetic resources, where genetic drift is an important problem, nor do these institutinos constitute organizations whose primary objective is conservation.

Another resource for maintenance of genetic resources in cultivated plants with interest in many differing types of plant materials are the amateur (the term amateur is not quite right here--there are some professionals) societies that sponsor various cultigens, such as the African Violet Society, the Iris Growers, etc., etc. By encouraging each of these societies to consider, as a part of their mission, the conservation of genetic resources in their cultigens, much could be accomplished