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 13 · DO #233 · 204_Popenoe_Bx14FF232r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Oppenheimer, Chanan, 10 November 1958–25 November 1966
Digital Object
DO #233, page 13
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 13 ↗

Page transcription

Antigua Guatemala, 24 June 1960

Dr. Chanan Oppenheimer,
24 Rppinstreet,
Rehovot, Israel.

Dear Dr. Oppenheimer:

Helen and I were greatly pleased to have the letter
from Maya and yourself dated 10 June. I shall be glad to have the
reprints which you are sending. I'm sure they will be useful to me
in connection with the Manual of tropical fruit culture on which I'M
working and which is to be published in Spanish as you know.

Our tropical section of the American Society for Horticultural
Science held its annual meeting in Puerto Rico last month. At that
time it was voted to hold the next meeting in the general region of
Miami, Florida. This will be in April. I greatly wish that you could
find some way to come to this meeting, after which you could fly back
here with us and spend a week or so in Guatemala, then return to Europe
on KLM via Costa Rica (Turrialba) and Curazao. Let's see if we cannot
find some way to work this out.

I have just sent to the California Avocado Society a translation
of Luis Sarasola's excellent paper on Cherimoya culture in Spain, which
I believe they will include in the Yearbook which will appear in August
or September.

Here I'm still kept busy with all sorts of odd jobs. Two weeks
ago I came back from Nicaragua where I was called by the government
to help plan a program of commercial fruit culture. There is a growing
interest right now in two subjects, one, the cultivation of temperate
zone fruits in the tropical highlands, and the other commercial production
of pili nuts in Central America. We have a fine experimental planting
of pili nut trees in Honduras. The job now is to select the best individual
seedlings and propagate them by grafting, just as they have done
and are doing with macadamias in Hawaii. We have the feeling that we
can do more with Pilsis than with macadamias. Greater production and a
not fine quality.

I have just finished the chapter on avocados for my manual in
Spanish. I hope you will like it. I have made particular mention of the
attention being devoted to the cultivation of this fruit tree in Israel.

Helen joins me in affectionate regards to Maya and yourself.
We often speak of our happy stay with you at Rehovot.

Faithfully yours,

Wilson Popenoe