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 104 · DO #1577 · 72_Degener_Bx2FF2_r

Collection
Otto Degener (1899–1988) papers
Item/Folder
Correspondence, 1925–1930, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1577, page 104
Collection-level dates
1915–1985, n.d.
Open PDF at page 104 ↗

Page transcription

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

May 20, 1927.

Mr. Otto Degener,
The University of Hawaii,
Honolulu, T. H.

Dear Mr. Degener:

Referring to your letter of May 8: I am sending you today one of the three remaining personal copies I have of my Enumeration of Philippine Flowering Plants, 4 volumes; I am also including in the package some reprints of recently issued papers, that is those published since I came to Berkeley. I do not have access to the bulk of my reprints of earlier publications as I left most of these in Manila. If you are interested in securing copies of some of my earlier papers, I can select a fairly large number of these from small sets that I have at the herbarium. I do not know, however, that you are particularly interested in these publications, which appertain mostly to the Philippine flora.

I am, of course, more or less familiar with the botanical situation in Hawaii from personal contacts. My general idea is that in a place as small as Honolulu it is highly advisable that the systematic work in botany be centralized in one institution. Some times, however, this is impossible, owing to the personal equation; and I judge that it is not particularly easy to cooperate with the present botanist in charge of the work at the Museum. However, much of the essential literature is in the Museum Library, and I presume that it would be your plan to work in close cooperation with that institution.

I have available very little indeed appertaining to the literature of Polynesia, that is for exchange purposes. I shall, however, be very glad to supply you with reprints of such papers as I have at my command; and as indicated in a previous communication, I can supply you with named, duplicate, botanical specimens.

Referring to your last paragraph: I think that it might be feasible to assist in financing botanical trips in Hawaii, the terms later to be arranged through the newly organized California Botanic Garden in Los Angeles. In this connection, you will doubtless be interested in the enclosed statement. I am already arranging for field work in botany at various places in the Orient through local residents. If the plan appeals to you I would like to make some similar arrangement with you whereby collections made on the basis of funds supplied by me would be divided on an equitable basis between you and the California Botanic Garden. I am interested at the present time, not only in building up a general reference