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:

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 204 · DO #1518 · 392_blunt_FF1_r

Collection
Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt (1901–1987) correspondence
Item/Folder
Correspondence , 1959–1964, .n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1518, page 204
Collection-level dates
1959–1987, n.d.
Open PDF at page 204 ↗

Page transcription

to cover the walls of the Conference Room. This would make it possible to continue to hang, as at present, attractive smaller miscellaneous groups of drawings in other parts of the Library.

2. That there should gradually be formed as complete as possible a record, in microfilms or small photographs, of the most important hand-painted florilegia and collections of original flower paintings scattered in various museums and libraries throughout the world. This is something that has never been attempted for botanical drawings and would, in my opinion, add great prestige to the Hunt Library and be of enormous value to the student of botanical art.

It is hardly necessary for me to mention the kind of work that I have in mind, but the following are one or two obvious examples: the hundred or more volumes of velins at the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris; the Walther florilegium at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the volume of Rabel drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the collection of Ehret drawings at Kew and in the Victoria and Albert Museums; the Rinio herbal, Venice, etc. etc. etc.

Arrangement and cataloguing of the collection of prints and drawings

In my opinion there is much to be said in favour of keeping original drawings and engraved work (at all events, engraved plates from printed books) separate. Anyone visiting the Library to study, say, Redouté, will be able to consult Les Roses, Choix des plus belles fleurs, etc. etc., for the engraved work; he will not want,