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 56 · DO #978 · 319_Love_Bx2FF23r

Collection
Áskell Löve (1916–1994) papers
Item/Folder
Yugoslavia Trip and Smithsonian Institution, 1971–1977
Digital Object
DO #978, page 56
Collection-level dates
1950–1987
Open PDF at page 56 ↗

Page transcription

2.

collected is being cultivated mainly at the Botanical Garden of the
University of Ljubljana, but also partly at the Juliana Botanical Garden
in the Alps, but facilities at both places are very limited and both lack
any gardener assistance specially for this project, because such help has
constantly been taken out from our budget estimates by those who thought
they understood better the needs of cytotaxonomists. When the material is
collected and cultivated, voucher specimens have been made for the Herbarium
of the University of Ljubljana, with duplicates available for an American
herbarium when the work has been completed. Because of the lack of an adequate
library for this kind of botany at Ljubljana, almost all the important
bibliographical work has been performed at Boulder by the two principal
American investigators during times of the year when they have no benefit
of the grant in Yugoslavian dinars, and all computer work has been paid
out of funds they have for other research purposes, or out of their own pocket.

Some of the highlights of the work and observations during this summer
are the following:

1) As mentioned in the first report, we realized already the first
summer the dire need for the compilation of a critical and computerized
checklist of the Slovenian flora, with a complete atlas of chromosome
numbers determined elsewhere for the taxa involved and a complete bibliography.
The basic checklist, which required considerable bibliographic and systematic
study to ascertain the correct nomenclature for the strictly defined taxa,
had been partially completed as a card-index before the first report was
sent in, but computerized only for the ferns and fern-allies. In our report
we optimistically expressed the hope that this list would be completely
computerized during the fall of 1971 and then printed during the spring,
innocently unaware of the fact that it might involve the punching of
over 100,000 cards before it could be finally printed out or put on tape.