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 67 · DO #4919 · 231_Rogers_Bx9FF1_r

Collection
David James Rogers (1918–2007) papers
Item/Folder
Manihot - Correspondence (Alphabetical), 1952–1959
Digital Object
DO #4919, page 67
Collection-level dates
1948–1977
Open PDF at page 67 ↗

Page transcription

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION
BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, SOILS, AND
AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING

DIVISION OF
PLANT EXPLORATION AND INTRODUCTION
PLANT INDUSTRY STATION
BELTSVILLE, MARYLAND

October 24, 1952

Prof. David J. Rogers
Department of Biology and Geology
Allegheny College
Meadville, Pennsylvania

Dear Professor Rogers:

I have your letter of October 20 suggesting that we might be interested in supporting your investigations and the collection of Manihot esculenta in South America.

This is a worthwhile study but one for which at the present time it would be impossible for us to find support. We have only a limited amount of money per year for plant exploration and the demands upon this money are very heavy, controlled in policy by our government programs with State Experiment Stations. Manihot esculenta is not a crop of more than passing interest to the growers in the United States. There have been times earlier in our history when it was grown in the most tropical parts of our Gulf States. Funds which we receive now must necessarily be used to promote the agriculture of continental United States first.

The Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its technical assistance programs, has had an interest in Manihot as a subsistence crop in Latin America for some years. Funds from that office are contributed to stations established in Peru, Ecuador, and several places in Central America. It may be that experimental work with Manihot has reached a stage with them where they might be interested in obtaining collections from the center of variation of this plant for breeding purposes. You might write a letter to Mr. Claud Horn, Technical Collaboration Branch, Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington 25, D.C., describing the general area where you propose to travel, the amount of time, and an approximate sum of money it would take for you to make this trip on the principle that they might have funds which could be used for this purpose. I can think of no other suggestion at the present time that would offer a possibility on obtaining financial support from the federal government for this purpose.

Very sincerely yours,

C. O. Erlanson
Head of Division

COE:MNB