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 49 · DO #382 · 204_Popenoe_Bx29FF381r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Whitman, Edmund S. and Sigrid, 15 May 1957–12 April 1973
Digital Object
DO #382, page 49
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 49 ↗

Page transcription

Antigua G, 13 July 1959

Mr E S Whitman, Vice President,
United Fruit Co, Pier 3 North River,
New York 6, NY

Dear Whit:

Back yesterday from two weeks in Mexico, during which I delivered six lectures to lads from 10 countries who were attending the International Course on Horticulture, then went with them on a 5-day field trip during which I showed them how to graft fruit trees successfully if you keep your knife so sharp that you can shave the hairs off your forearm. I sent you a copy of my banana syllabus; and incidentally, at the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico City I met a Dr Simmonds, Englishman, who has been for some years at the Imperial Tropical Agriculture College in Trinidad and has in press a book on bananas, which he says treats of the botany as well as the culture of this crop. He says it should be out in a month or so; you probably know all about it, but you most certainly will want to see a copy. Dr Simmonds is sound, no doubt about that - at least on the technical side. I don't know just what data he may have on cultural problems.

This week I am to receive a man sent from Venezuela by the Fundación Eugenio Mendoza, who is to learn as much as he can about tropical fruit propagation and varieties; I send him from here to friends of mine in Southern Florida where he will learn more.

Mighty glad to hear about the mashed banana business. Among the four graduates of our school who constituted 16.4% of the membership of the group attending the International Course in Horticulture at Mexico City (some satisfaction, that!) was one from the Dominican Republic, who told me about the mashed bananas. Right lad, and as I think you know, another of our graduates, Manuel de Jesus Viñas y Caceres, is Subsecretario de Agricultura in that Republic. Our boys are not doing too badly. Another one is Director of Extension in El Salvador and still another Assistant Director.

I am trying hard to sit down here and get ahead with Das Buch, and I shall do it, if God grants me grace, but on getting home what do I find but a letter from Florida saying I simply must come to Gainesville at the end of November to take part in the annual meeting of the Florida Soils and Crop Science Society. So runs the world away.

Ever yours,

Wilson Popencow