JPH0973453A - Device and method for information storage retrieval - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily and efficiently retrieve desired information without knowing well about a key word by totalizing and displaying key words of object information and retrieving the information according to a key word selected out of them. SOLUTION: The key words of the information (document) to be retrieved are read out of a secondary storage device 6 and developed on a key word totalization data storage part 5a of a RAM 5, key words which are repeated between the pieces of information to be retrieved among the read key words are counted as a frequency of appearance, and the gathered key words are rearranged in the decreasing order of counted values and displayed on a display 2. Then a key word for retrieval is selected by referring to the display contents. Once the key word is selected, a CPU 1 generates a retrieval expression from the selected key word and displays it. Thus, the key words of the object information are totalized and displayed, and the retrieval is performed on the basis of the key word selected out of them, so the retrieval is efficiently performed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information storage / retrieval apparatus and method for retrieving desired information from a plurality of stored information such as documents.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional information storage / retrieval device, for example, when searching for information related to predetermined information, the information is searched based on the creator, field, keyword, etc. of the predetermined information.

Further, necessary related information has been narrowed down by referring to the outline of predetermined information. When searching for information using a keyword, the user searches for the target information by designating the keyword that seems to be registered.

[0004]

However, in the conventional information storage / retrieval device, when performing a search based on a keyword, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of what words are registered as the keyword, and the target information is obtained. Could not be specified accurately. Furthermore, if the target information is narrowed down to some extent, the number of valid keywords will also decrease, and there is no way to know what kind of keyword should be specified for further narrowing down, and trial and error must be repeated. There wasn't.

Further, in the conventional information storage / retrieval device, the cost for narrowing down related documents (information) is high, and the cost becomes more remarkable as the amount of stored information increases. In some cases, even if the user wants to use the information storage / retrieval device, he / she has to give up due to the cost. Further, there is a problem that the search result (accuracy) depends on the skill of the search operation.

The present invention has been made under such a background. A first object of the present invention is to enable desired information to be searched easily and efficiently even if one does not have a thorough knowledge of keywords. .

A second object of the present invention is to make it possible to retrieve desired information inexpensively by a simple operation regardless of the amount of information stored, regardless of the skill of the retrieval operation. To do.

[0008]

In order to achieve the first object, the information storage and retrieval device according to claim 1 stores a plurality of information in association with a keyword characterizing the information. Totaling means for totaling the keywords stored in the storage means, display means for displaying the keywords totaled by the totaling means, and selecting means for selecting a desired keyword from the keywords displayed on the display means And a search unit that searches the storage unit for information including at least the keyword selected by the selection unit.

In order to achieve the first object, the second aspect
In the above described information storage / retrieval device, the search means of claim 1 is configured to search the storage means for information including the input keyword.

In order to achieve the first object, claim 3
In the described information storage / retrieval device, the totalizing means of claim 1 or 2 is configured to total the keywords of all the information stored in the storage means.

In order to achieve the first object, it is preferable that:
In the information storage / retrieval device described above, the totalizing means of claim 1, claim 2, or claim 3 is the information once retrieved by the searching means from among the information stored in the storage means. Is configured to aggregate the keywords.

In order to achieve the first object, the invention according to claim 5
In the information storage / retrieval device described above, the aggregating unit according to claim 1, claim 2, claim 3, or claim 4 aggregates the keywords of the information stored in the storage unit, and overlaps the information. The keywords are arranged in descending order of the number of appearances, and the display unit is configured to display the keywords in the order of arrangement.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned second object, claim 6
The information storage / retrieval device described above refers to a storage unit that stores a plurality of information, a degree-of-association storage unit that stores a degree of association between each information stored in the storage unit, and information stored in the storage unit. And a reference history storage unit that stores a reference history including at least reference information, a reference person, and a reference date and time,
Update means for updating the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means based on the reference history stored in the reference history storage means, and information relating to designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means And display control means for displaying the information name of information having a high degree of association.

In order to achieve the second object, the invention according to claim 7
In the information storage and retrieval device described above, the updating means of claim 6 updates the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means based on the reference history stored in the reference history storage means It is configured to update the degree of association between the pieces of information referred to by a person within a certain period.

In order to achieve the second object, the invention as defined in claim 8
In the information storage / retrieval device described above, the display means according to claim 6 or 7 displays the information name of the information having a high degree of association with the information related to the designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means. It is configured to be arranged and displayed in descending order of relevance.

In order to achieve the first object described above, a ninth aspect is provided.
The described information storage and retrieval method includes a storage step of storing a plurality of pieces of information in association with keywords that characterize the information, a totalization step of totalizing the keywords stored in the storage step, and the totalization step means. A displaying step of displaying the aggregated keywords, a selecting step of selecting a desired keyword from the keywords displayed in the displaying step, and a storing step of storing information including at least the keyword selected in the selecting step And a search step of searching from the information stored in.

In order to achieve the first object, the first aspect
In the information storing and searching method described in 0, in the searching step of claim 9, the information including the input keyword is searched from the information stored in the storing step.

In order to achieve the first object, the first aspect
The information storage / retrieval method according to item 1 is configured such that, in the aggregation step of claim 9 or claim 10, the keywords of all the information stored in the storage step are aggregated.

In order to achieve the first object, a first aspect is provided.
The information storage / retrieval method described in 2 is claim 9, claim 10,
Alternatively, the totaling step means of claim 11 is configured to total the keywords of the information once retrieved in the retrieval step among the information stored in the storage step.

In order to achieve the first object, the claim 1
The information storage / retrieval method described in 3 is claim 9, claim 10,
In the aggregation step of claim 11 or claim 12, the keywords of the information stored in the storage step are aggregated and arranged in the order in which the number of duplicate occurrences between the pieces of information is large, and in the display step in the arrangement order. It is configured to display the keyword.

In order to achieve the second object, the invention according to claim 1
In the information storage and retrieval method described in 4, the storage step of storing a plurality of information, the degree-of-association storage step of storing the degree of association between each information stored in the storage step, and the storage step of the storage step When the information is referred to, a reference history storing step of storing a reference history including at least reference information, a referrer, and a reference date and time, and a degree of association stored in the degree of association storing step is stored in the reference history storing step. An update step of updating based on the reference history that has been made, and a display control step of displaying the information name of the information related to the designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storing step and the information name of information having a high degree of association. are doing.

In order to achieve the second object, the first aspect is provided.
The information storage and retrieval method according to claim 5, wherein in the updating step of claim 14, the relevance degree stored in the relevance degree storing step is updated based on the reference history stored in the reference history storing step. It is configured to update the degree of association between pieces of information referred to by the same referer within a fixed period.

In order to achieve the second object, the claim 1
In the information storage / retrieval method according to the sixth aspect, in the display step according to claim 14 or claim 15, information relating to designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storing step and information having high degree of association The names are arranged and displayed in descending order of relevance.

[0024]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the schematic arrangement of an information storage / retrieval apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU that controls the entire information storage and retrieval apparatus, and the CPU 1 includes a display 2, an input device 3, a ROM 4, and an R via a bus 7.
The AM 5 and the secondary storage device 6 are connected to each other so that they can exchange data with each other.

The display 2 is composed of a CRT, a liquid crystal or the like, and displays information, options, etc. being created.
The input device 3 is composed of a keyboard and a pointing device such as a mouse, and is used for instructing various processes, moving a target point, selecting operation, inputting characters and symbols, and the like.

The ROM 4 is a read-only memory for storing various programs executed by the CPU 1, and a keyword help section 4a is formed in a part of its storage area.
The keyword help unit 4a stores programs and data for totaling and selecting keywords of information to be searched.

The RAM 5 is a readable / writable memory for temporarily storing the keywords, various calculation results, input information, etc., which are totalized under the control of the CPU 1, and the keyword total data is stored in a part of its storage area. A storage unit 5a is formed, and this keyword aggregation data storage unit 5a is used as a work area of the keyword help unit 4a.

The secondary storage device 6 is composed of a hard disk, a magneto-optical disk, etc., and is, for example, shown in FIG.
Various types of information (documents) as shown in (f) are stored in association with a keyword group that characterizes the information.

Next, the information retrieval processing in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
It will be described according to the flowchart of

When the operator inputs a command from the input device 3 and gives an instruction to start information retrieval, the CPU 1 causes the RO
According to the program of the keyword help unit 4a in M4, first, as shown in FIG. 4, for example, the current search state and the input area for the next search expression are displayed on the display 2 (step S1).

In this display process, when the search process has been executed so far, the immediately preceding search formula is displayed and the number of information (documents) including the keyword indicated by the search formula is displayed. , The current search status, that is, the number of currently applicable documents, and further, the input area of the next search formula and the selection candidates of the search method (“narrow down current applicable documents”, “current applicable documents” in FIG. 4). , "New"), and "keyword help", "OK", and "cancel" buttons are displayed. Immediately after the information search process according to this flow is started, the input areas of the current search expression and the next search method, the search method selection candidates, and the above buttons are displayed. The search status of is not displayed.

In the search method, "narrow down current relevant documents" means that once a keyword is designated and a relevant document including the keyword related to the designation is searched,
This is a search method in which a keyword is newly designated and documents including the newly designated keyword are narrowed down from the relevant documents. The search target information is the relevant document.

"Add to current relevant document" means that once a keyword is designated and a relevant document including the keyword related to the designation is searched, a new keyword is designated and the document is currently searched. A search method that searches for a document that contains the keyword from registered documents other than the applicable document and adds that document to the previous applicable document as the applicable document. It becomes a document.

"New" means a search method performed when a search expression (keyword) is designated for the first time or when the keyword help button is selected without specifying the search expression (keyword) at all, The search target information is all registered documents.

Next, waiting for a command to be input from the input device 3 (step S2), the input command is evaluated (determined) (step S3), and processing according to the input command is performed. The command input can be performed by designating and selecting each button displayed on the display 2 by a selection operation using the input device 3. Further, the current search formula and the next search formula can be set by designating their titles and the like. In FIG. 4, the underlined cursor is moved to the title part "Next Search Expression", and the keyword corresponding to "Next Search Expression" can be set.

If it is evaluated in step S3 that the OK command is input by selecting the OK button or the like, OK processing for validating the currently displayed search formula and search method is performed, and the search formula A search process based on the search method is performed (step S4), the process returns to step S2 and waits for the next command input.

If it is evaluated that the cancel command is input by selecting the cancel button or the like, cancel processing for invalidating the currently displayed search formula and search method is performed (step S5), and step S2 is performed. Return to and wait for the next command input.

If the input of another command such as the movement of the point of interest is evaluated, a process according to the other command is performed (step S5), and step S2 is executed.
Return to and wait for the next command input.

Further, when it is evaluated that the keyword help command is input by selecting the keyword help button or the like, the keywords of the registered information are totaled (step S7).

The details of this totaling process will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 5. First, the keyword of the above-mentioned search target information (document) is read from the secondary storage device 6, and the RAM is read.
It is expanded on the keyword aggregation data storage unit 5a of No. 5 (step S71, see FIG. 6A). Then, among the read keywords, the keywords that overlap between the search target information items are counted as the number of appearances (frequency), and the process is put together into one (step S72, see FIG. 6B), and put together. The keywords are rearranged in descending order of the count value (step S73, see FIG. 6C), and the totaling process ends.

In this keyword aggregation processing, the retrieval object information (document) is read without reading all the retrieval object information (documents) at a time and expanding them on the keyword aggregation data storage section 5a to aggregate the keywords. It is also possible to aggregate the keywords into a plurality of blocks, read them in block units, expand them on the keyword aggregate data storage unit 5a and aggregate the keywords, and aggregate the keywords at a higher speed in a smaller RAM area.

Returning to the description of the flow of FIG. 3, step S
In 8, the result of the keyword tabulation process as shown in FIG. 7 is displayed on the display 2. Therefore, the operator refers to the displayed contents and selects, for example, a keyword for the narrowed search when performing a narrowed search, and also selects "narrow down the current relevant document" as the search method (step S9). In this case, for example, as shown in FIG. 8, the keyword selection is performed when "police" is to be designated as the keyword for the next narrowing search in the state where the current point of interest is the keyword "car". Selects "police" as a keyword for the next narrowed search by, for example, clicking "police" displayed. The keywords thus selected are displayed in a shaded manner to clearly show that fact, as shown in FIG. Also, regarding the selected search method, the white circle at the previous position is changed to a black circle (see FIGS. 4 and 9).

In this way, when the next retrieval keyword is selected, the CPU 1 generates a retrieval formula from the selected keyword and displays it on the display 2 as shown in FIG. 9 (step S10), and returns to step S2 to wait for the next command input.

As described above, in the first embodiment, the keywords of the target information are aggregated and displayed, and the information is searched based on the keyword selected from the keywords. Moreover, it becomes possible to easily and efficiently search for the target information even when the keyword is completely unknown.

[Second Embodiment] FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a schematic structure of an information storage / retrieval apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 10, reference numeral 10 denotes a CPU that controls the entire information storage and retrieval apparatus. The CPU 11 has a display 12, an input device 13, and an RO via a bus 17.
The M14, the RAM 15, and the secondary storage device 16 are connected to each other so that they can exchange data with each other.

The display 12 is composed of a CRT, a liquid crystal or the like, and displays information, options, etc. being created. The input device 13 is composed of a keyboard, a pointing device such as a mouse, and is used for various processing commands and characters.
It is used to input symbols.

The ROM 14 is a read-only memory for storing various programs executed by the CPU 11. R
The AM 15 is a readable / writable memory that temporarily stores a reference history, various calculation results, etc. under the control of the CPU 11.

The secondary storage device 16 is composed of a hard disk, a magneto-optical disk, etc., and stores various kinds of information (documents) such as patent application publication information, an information related variable table and the like. In this information-related variable table, for example, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 5, for each information (A to D in the example of FIG. 11) registered in the secondary storage device 16, an area for storing the number of times the information is referred to and related variables with other information is stored. Has been secured. The number of times the information is referenced is incremented by 1 each time the information is referenced, and the related variable is the same user who references the information within a certain period to search for information related to the specified information. The associated variable with the designated information of the referred information is incremented by one.

Next, the information retrieval processing in the second embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When the power is turned on, the CPU 11 causes the RO
First, according to the program stored in M14, initialization processing necessary for system startup is performed (step S2).
1). Then, it waits for the registration identification code to be input from the input device 13, and when the registration identification code is input, it is confirmed whether or not the registration identification code is registered and the registrant himself is about to perform a search. However, if the search is performed by the registrant himself / herself, a login initialization process is performed to enable subsequent operations such as initialization of a specific information list described later (step S22).

Next, it waits for a command to be input from the input device 13 (step S23), evaluates (determines) the input command (step S24), and performs processing according to the input command.

That is, if it is evaluated in step S24 that the logout command is input, the logout process necessary for ending the operation by the user who is currently using this apparatus is performed (step S25). The information related variable table is updated based on the reference history information recorded in step S28 described later (step S26), and the process returns to step S22 to wait for the next user to use.

For example, as shown in FIG. 13, the reference history information indicates that the information “A”, “B”, and “C” are referred to by the referrer “a” within a certain time, and the current information-related variable table is shown in FIG.
In the state of (a), as shown in FIG.
First, paying attention to the information A, the reference count of the information A is incremented by 1 to update it from “250” to “251”, and the related variables of the information B and C related to the information A are incremented by 1 respectively to “ 54 "to" 55 "and" 44 "to" 45 "are updated. Similarly, paying attention to the information B, the reference count of the information B is incremented by 1 to be updated from “518” to “519”, and the related variable with the information C related to the information B is incremented by 1 to “22”.
To "23.

If the information retrieval command is evaluated in step S24, the name of the information (such as the document name) and the retrieval condition are designated to narrow down the target information from the registered information. Information is arbitrarily specified by performing an operation and referring to the outline of the narrowed down information, a specific information list is generated (step S27), and the process returns to step S23 to wait for the next command input.

When the command is evaluated to be an information reference command, the entire contents of the specific information shown in the specific information list are displayed on the display 12 so that the user can refer to the information, and, for example, as shown in FIG. , The name of the referrer, the reference date and time, and the information name of the referred information as the reference history in the RAM 15
(Step S28) and returns to step S23 to wait for the next command input.

When the command is evaluated to be a related document search command, each piece of specific information in the list of arbitrarily specified specific information, that is, information that has been referred to by the same user within a certain period of time. , The related variable is divided by the reference count of other information, the quotient is used as the related frequency, and the document names of the related documents are rearranged in descending order of the related frequency (step S29), and the processing result is displayed on the display 12
(Step S30, see FIG. 15), the process returns to step S23 and waits for the next command input.

As can be inferred from the above description, in the processing in which the quotient obtained by dividing the related variable by the reference frequency of other information is used as the relevance frequency, the information registered from old times naturally has the reference frequency and the related frequency. If the variable becomes large and the reference count or related variable is used as the association frequency as it is, the association degree becomes higher than the recently registered information and an accurate association degree cannot be obtained, so the purpose of normalizing the association degree Run on. Further, when displaying the related document in step S30, the display of the related document having the predetermined degree of the relatedness is omitted.

If the command is evaluated to be another command in step S24, a process corresponding to the command is performed (step S31), and the process returns to step S23 to wait for the next command input.

As described above, in the second embodiment, the information history of information is statistically processed to display the information name of the information highly related to any specified information. Even if there is a lot of information,
It becomes possible to search for desired information at low cost by a simple operation without being influenced by the skill of the search operation.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and is applied not only to a device consisting of one device but also to a system consisting of a plurality of devices such as a server / client system. May be.

It is also possible to supply a program to a system or apparatus from a floppy disk or the like and execute the above-mentioned search processing according to the program.

Further, the storage area for the keyword summation and the storage area for the reference history may be formed on the secondary storage such as an inexpensive floppy disk instead of the RAM. Also, the information variable table is stored in the RAM without being stored in the secondary storage device.
It is also possible to execute the information retrieval processing at high speed by storing it in the.

[0064]

As described above, according to the first to fifth and ninth aspects.
According to the inventions described in to 13, the keywords of the target information are aggregated and displayed, and the information is searched based on the keywords selected from the keywords, so that even if you are not familiar with the keywords, you can easily and efficiently. It is possible to search for desired information.

Further, according to the inventions of claims 6 to 8 and 14 to 16, by statistically processing the reference history of the information, the information name of the information highly relevant to any specified information can be obtained. Since the information is displayed, it is possible to search for desired information at low cost with a simple operation regardless of the amount of stored information, regardless of the skill of the search operation.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information storage / retrieval device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram exemplifying keywords stored in association with a document in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an information search process according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an input screen for a search expression and the like according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing in detail the keyword totaling process in step S7 of FIG.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a keyword tabulation process according to the first embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example of a keyword aggregation result according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a keyword selection process according to the first embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a state in which a search formula is automatically generated and displayed based on a selected keyword in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information storage / retrieval device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an information related variable table in the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing an information search process according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of reference history information according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an update example of an information related variable table according to the second embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing a display example of related information according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 11 ... CPU 2, 12 ... Display 3, 13 ... Input device 4, 14 ... ROM 4a ... Keyword help part 5, 15 ... RAM 5a ... Keyword total data storage part 6, 16 ... Secondary storage device 7, 17 ... bus

Claims (16)

[Claims] 1. A storage unit for storing a plurality of information in association with a keyword characterizing the information, a totaling unit for totaling the keywords stored in the storage unit, and a keyword totaled by the totaling unit is displayed. Display means for selecting, a selection means for selecting a desired keyword from the keywords displayed on the display means, and a search means for searching the storage means for information containing at least the keyword selected by the selection means. An information storage / retrieval device comprising: 2. The information storage / retrieval device according to claim 1, wherein the retrieval unit retrieves information including the input keyword from the storage unit. 3. The information storage / retrieval device according to claim 1, wherein the totaling unit totals the keywords of all the information stored in the storage unit. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the totaling unit totalizes the keywords of the information once retrieved by the retrieval unit out of the information stored in the storage unit. The information storage and retrieval device described in 3. 5. The totaling unit totals the keywords of the information stored in the storage unit and arranges the keywords in descending order of the number of duplicate occurrences between the respective information, and the display unit displays the keywords in the arrangement order. The information storage / retrieval device according to claim 1, claim 2, claim 3, or claim 4. 6. A storage means for storing a plurality of information, a degree-of-association storage means for storing a degree of association between each piece of information stored in the storage means, and when the information stored in the storage means is referred to. , A reference history storage unit that stores a reference history including at least reference information, a reference person, and a reference date and time, and an association degree stored in the association degree storage unit is updated based on the reference history stored in the reference history storage unit. Information storing means for displaying the information name of the information having a high degree of association with the information related to the designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storing means. Search device. 7. The updating means updates the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means based on the reference history stored in the reference history storage means, and the same referrer refers to the reference degree within a certain period. 7. The information storage / retrieval device according to claim 6, wherein the degree of association between the obtained information is updated to be high. 8. The display means arranges and displays information names of information having a high degree of association and information related to designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree-of-association storage means in order of high degree of association. The information storage / retrieval device according to claim 6 or claim 7 characterized in that. 9. A storage step of storing a plurality of information in association with a keyword characterizing the information, a totaling step of totaling the keywords stored in the storage step, and a totaling step A display step of displaying the keyword, a selection step of selecting a desired keyword from the keywords displayed in the display step, and storing information including at least the keyword selected in the selection step in the storage step An information storage and retrieval method comprising: a retrieval step of retrieving from the retrieved information. 10. The information storage and retrieval method according to claim 9, wherein in the retrieval step, information including the input keyword is retrieved from the information stored in the storage step. 11. The information storage / retrieval method according to claim 9, wherein in the totaling step, the keywords of all the information stored in the storing step are totaled. 12. The summarizing step means sums up the keywords of the information once retrieved in the retrieving step among the information stored in the storing step. Alternatively, the information storage retrieval method according to claim 11. 13. In the totaling step, the keywords of the information stored in the storage step are totaled and arranged in the order of the number of times of occurrence of duplicated information, and in the displaying step, the keywords are displayed in the order of arrangement. The information storage / retrieval method according to claim 9, claim 10, claim 11, or claim 12. 14. A storage step of storing a plurality of information, a degree-of-association storage step of storing a degree of association between each piece of information stored in the storage step, and information stored in the storage step is referred to. At this time, a reference history storing step of storing a reference history including at least reference information, a reference person, and a reference date and time; And a display control step of displaying an information name of information having a high degree of association and information related to designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree of association storage step. Information storage retrieval method to be. 15. The updating step updates the degree of association stored in the association degree storing step based on the reference history stored in the reference history storing step. 15. The information storage / retrieval method according to claim 14, wherein the degree of association between the information referred to in (1) is updated to be high. 16. In the displaying step, information names of information having a high degree of association and information related to designation based on the degree of association stored in the degree of association storing step are arranged and displayed in descending order of the degree of association. Claim 14 or Claim 15 characterized by
Information storage search method described.