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 35 · DO #1718 · 72_Degener_Bx7FF33_r

Collection
Otto Degener (1899–1988) papers
Item/Folder
Typed Manuscripts By The Degeners, 1946–1962, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1718, page 35
Collection-level dates
1915–1985, n.d.
Open PDF at page 35 ↗

Page transcription

Collecting

the entire hamlet, my host was practically penniless. When asked why he charged no rent for his property, he replied he did not care to do so. If he were to try to collect it, his friends would move away and he would be lonely. When one of the little urchins, deprived of schooling, was asked if he had had a good teacher the year before, he answered: "Yes, he good teacher - he no whip much." Few visitors to Honolulu will ever guess that primitive Hawaii may still be found XXXXXXXXXXX hidden away here and there along the coast.

The years of 1930-32 were spent on Oahu in continued collecting and describing of plants. Then shortly after the publication of Book 1 of his "Flora Hawaiensis" in June 1933, Mr. Degener sailed for California, with two of his assistants. As a party of three, motoring across the Continent by the southern route, they arrived at the New York Botanical Garden in August. Here the Hawaiian herbarium, weighing about two and a half tons, had preceded them. Work was resumed and in November 1934 Book 2 of the "Flora Hawaiensis" was completed.

After a stay of almost a decade in the Hawaiian Islands Mr. Degener has been able to amass an unexcelled collection of Hawaiian plants estimated to contain upward of 40,000 specimens. He has written three profusely illustrated books on the Hawaiian flora, one of which is of a popular nature. He has amassed hundreds of illustrations of local plants drawn by students under his personal direction. More than half of these plates yet remain to be published in succeeding books of the Flora. He has collaborated by the loan of specimens to the B. P. Bishop Museum and the Field Museum in monographic studies of the Mosses, Astelias, Peperomiae, Labiatae and Compositae. He has distributed by gift, sale or exchange duplicate specimens to leading botanical institutions in America and Europe. These XXXXXXXXXXXXX shipments comprise chiefly endemic plants, though pan-tropic ones are not lacking.

As opportunities for students have greatly improved in the Islands since the administration of Governor Poindexter, Mr. Degener now plans to return to continue the describing and illustrating of Hawaiian ferns and flowering plants from living specimens. This work, no doubt, will be followed by a third visit to the New York Botanical Garden where facilities for the critical determination of Hawaiian plants is almost ideal.

The meeting was illustrated with lantern slides.