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 39 · DO #1619 · 72_Degener_Bx3FF38A_r

Collection
Otto Degener (1899–1988) papers
Item/Folder
Correspondence, 1979, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1619, page 39
Collection-level dates
1915–1985, n.d.
Open PDF at page 39 ↗

Page transcription

DRS. OTTO & ISA DEGENER
P. O. Box 154
Volcano, Hawaii 96785, U.S.A.
March 14, 1979

Dear Don:

It goes without saying that an herbarium with well pressed plants is wonderful to have; but that should not hide the fact that the prime purpose of an herbarium is not for show. IT IS A SCIENTIFIC TOOL. Each sheet requires primarily 1.) geographical place of collection, 2.) ecological information, 3.) date of collection, 4.) the actual collector, and of course 5.) any other information thought to be significant. Curiously enough, identification (I enclose a field label) is not as important as professional botanists can write the scientific name of their choice on the label from studying the plant itself. Herbaria of the World are accustomed to discard any specimens lacking place of collection, date & name of actual collector as not worth time of mounting nor space in the cabinets. Moreover, as Botany is a progressive Science involving capable scientists often holding diverse views, curators welcome any seriously considered views. Diverse identifications by diverse critics, for example, are to be written IN PENCIL by the critics on the herbarium sheet, signed and dated. For anyone to erase such a note comes close to forgery!

Dr. E.D. Merrill - truly the Linnaeus of the Pacific - long in the Philippines and my former Director at the New York Botanical Garden, increased the value of the herbaria under his charge as research tools still more. He saved the valuable time of experts by "including the Library in the Herbarium." This "inclusion" needs explaining: He did not have botanical books removed from the library shelves & stuck in herbarium cases with plants. The library remained the library. But whenever the library possessed inexpensive duplicate books or pamphlets, these would be carefully dismembered and pages with descriptions of genera represented in the herbarium would then be pasted on the proper genus cover; and species, on proper species cover. If the labor force happened to be out of worthwhile work, (these were War depression gears with assigned free labor) the employees might type important analyses and descriptions for pasting on folders.

The busy scientist, looking through the herbarium, would so often be saved hours of hunting in the library for the desired information (or clue to information) as it was at his fingertips on the table with the specimen.

About fifteen years ago the Park herbarium had been so mauled and the historical collectors defrauded by theft & pilfering of original voucher specimens then under the supervision of a "naturalist" that we no longer felt we should waste our time consulting it. With You, Mrs. Dixon & others now at the Park, such vandalism evidently has stopped; but by now Mrs. D., & I are busy trying to complete projects already begun that we are curtailing herbarium work. Hence, while cleaning out our cabinets, Mrs. D., & I found a few specimens we had reserved for the Park. Here they are.

Iza joins me in aloha to Mrs. Reeser & yourself living in your most interesting house in a most interesting environment,