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 19 · DO #1563 · 40_Slate_Bx4FF3r

Collection
George Lewis Slate (1899–1976) papers on Arnold Arboretum
Item/Folder
Printed Documents, 1952–1956
Digital Object
DO #1563, page 19
Collection-level dates
1949–1967, n.d.
Open PDF at page 19 ↗

Page transcription

The Plan proposes (pp. 34-37) to combine the Arboretum and the eight other "independent botanical agencies" in two administrative and budgetary "Areas" or "Institutes," and thus to integrate their activities and their resources for the benefit of botanical science as a whole, and in particular to improve and make more efficient the work of research and instruction in botany at Harvard.

On page 27, after referring to the past era in which the nine agencies had developed independently and had become the subjects of "encystment," the Report speaks of the fact that there has been "no effective administrative mechanism for dealing with the welfare of Harvard's botany as a whole," and says that in recent years progress has been made "in developing objective and unbiased discussions of the future welfare of the Department [of "Botany"], and of Harvard's botanical setup as a whole."

On page 31, after referring to Harvard's large investment in properties utilized for various botanical activities, and its past accomplishments in the early stages of America's botanical developments, the Bailey Report proceeds:

"By efficient integration and utilization of these resources, Harvard can resume outstanding future leadership in the botanical field.
"It is essential, accordingly, to initiate a searching analysis of all of our botanical agencies and to attempt to formulate broadly conceived and fundamentally sound plans and policies for the future developments of botanical science at Harvard."

The section of the Report outlining the proposed new "administrative organization" states (p. 33):
"The complexities and the salient defects in the present botanical setup at Harvard are the heritage
*It is apparent from the context that the Arboretum trust fund is included in "Harvard's investments."

And at pages 34-35:
"It is evident to anyone who has been long and intimately associated with these agencies [the nine, including the Arboretum] that an efficient mechanism is needed for integrating their activities and for correlating them with those of the Department of Biology.
"Should the latter agencies be combined in one or two budgetary areas and administered by an advisory body comparable to the Department of Biology?"

The Report proceeds to answer the question in the affirmative. It states that the "activities of the 'orphan institutions' fall into two distinct, natural categories or areas," and accordingly proposes to set up (1) an Area of General Morphology, including the library and herbarium of the Arboretum and also the libraries and herbaria of the Gray Herbarium, the Farlow and the Botanical Museum, and "fields of research entirely or partly dependent upon such accumulations of preserved material, i.e.,