JPH10289244A - Method and device for document retrieval delivering - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system which changes a retrieval condition automatically or after a user's confirmation and sets a retrieval condition with higher accuracy when much news is distributed. SOLUTION: A news clipping system 101 preliminarily retrieves news that is sent to a clipping process 108 on a retrieval condition that is set by a user by utilizing a WWW(world wide wave) browser 121, a mail reader 122, etc. Only news that is suitable for the retrieval condition is fetched, and a news distribution process 109 distributes the information to a user and counts the number of news that are distributed to each user. When the value exceeds a value set by a user, a retrieval condition change request process 115 notifies to the user that he should change a retrieval condition expression because the number of distributed news exceeds the set value.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a document search and delivery system using the Internet. In particular, the present invention can be applied to an information filtering system that immediately delivers a document that satisfies a search condition set by a plurality of users to each user. Further, the present invention can be applied to a document search device that acquires a necessary document from a large amount of document data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Technologies such as a mail system and a news system using the Internet, and information acquisition by the WWW (World Wide Web) are widely used. These technologies utilize a communication technology between computers based on various protocols using a network connecting the computers, and the delivery of mail, news, and WWW information is realized by this technology.

[0003] As a conventional technique for distributing news meeting search conditions, one day's worth of news is accumulated.
Classify information and obtain scores for search conditions, select a predetermined number of news from the top of the score,
There is a storage-type information filtering system that delivers once a day.

A technique of extracting words that appear in common from a plurality of documents and creating a document group based on the obtained words is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-153121, “Document Information Classification Method and Document Information Classification Device”. As shown, in this method, multiple documents are grouped based on words obtained by morphological analysis.

[0005] As a news delivery system requiring immediacy, Japanese Patent Application No. 8-201348 filed by the present applicant has been proposed.
In the issue “Document Search and Delivery Method and Apparatus”, a method of integrating search conditions of a plurality of users and processing a conditional expression of a plurality of users by one text scan is disclosed. According to this method, it is possible to realize a news clipping system that transmits news that matches a given search condition to a user in real time.

As a search condition, a method is often used in which a logical expression combining the presence or absence of a plurality of keywords is created, and a determination is made based on whether the logical expression is satisfied. Regarding the processing of logical expressions, a technique for speeding up the processing is proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-101841, "Document Search Method and Apparatus". This method is a method in which, after checking whether or not each term appears, a search condition expression is transformed into an expression obtained by a logical sum of elements of a logical product, and then processing is performed. If the logical product does not hold even for one element that constitutes the expression, the whole will be unsatisfied, and the logical sum uses the property that if only one element that makes up the expression holds, the whole will hold,
It is possible to evaluate whether a logical expression has been established or not, without checking for the presence or absence of all the terms. For example,
“(A & B) | C” is a search condition in which a term A and a term B appear, or a logical expression holds when the term C appears. In this case, after checking whether or not each term has appeared, it is checked whether or not both term A and term B have appeared, and whether or not term C has appeared. If any one of the conditions is satisfied, this condition is satisfied. Therefore, when A & B is satisfied, the evaluation of the present logical expression can be completed without performing the evaluation of C. Logical judgment is possible.

[0007] Also, when searching for a Japanese document,
It is necessary to absorb the difference in the notation method (hereinafter, called different notation). For example, the word "intercom"
"Intercom", "Intercom", "Intercom"
Etc. may be described in a different notation. By creating a character string that expands all these notations and registering each character string separately in the automaton, using a method that also searches for these different notations, the difference in partial All combinations must be created and the created variant notation must be registered. Katakana is used to display foreign words, and long terms such as "digital audio tape recorders" may be keywords. As the term length increases, the number of different notations increases exponentially with the increase in the number of partial notations. Using the above method,
Since the number of terms to be registered increases, there is a problem that the processing time increases in proportion to this. To solve this problem, the technique described in the patent of Hatakeyama et al. (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 3-15980, "Method of expanding different synonyms and synonyms for character string search") can be used to partially By creating an automaton that expands each part by dividing it into various combinations, without generating all expansion results,
All combinations of different notations can be processed.

[0008]

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

(1) The storage-type information filtering system searches for information after accumulating news for a certain period of time and transmits information based on the search results. Not suitable for the intended use. For such an application, a “news clipping system” that performs search condition determination in real time when news is received so as to immediately send information to a user is suitable. However, a problem of such a news clipping system is that a large amount of news may be sent to the user because a large amount of information is suitable depending on the setting contents of the search condition.

(2) In order to realize high-speed processing not only in the news clipping system but also in other document search systems, it is necessary to speed up the processing of logical expressions. When a logical expression is processed by the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-101841 "Document Searching Method and Apparatus", when the number of search terms constituting the logical expression increases, the processing time increases in proportion to this. There is a problem. For example, according to this method, the logical expression ｛(A | B | C | D) &
(E | F | G | H)}, A, B, C, D
Exists, and E, F, G,
If any search term of H exists, it is understood that the present logical expression is established. In other words, A, B, C,
That all the terms of D do not exist, or that E,
Unless it is confirmed that all of the terms of F, G, and H do not exist, it cannot be understood that the logical formula does not apply.
In general, search conditions are set for the purpose of narrowing down a large amount of information, so that much information does not apply to this logical expression. Therefore, when the conventional method is used, if a search condition including a large number of search terms is set in order to achieve a higher refinement, there is a problem that a lot of time is spent for checking a logical expression.

[0010] (3) Japanese Patent Application No. 8-201348 "Document Search and Delivery Method and Apparatus" discloses that a process for extracting a search term from search conditions designated by a plurality of users can be realized at high speed. With this method, search conditions can be integrated, and search conditions of a plurality of users can be processed by one text scan. In addition, the processing of Japanese synonyms / different notations can be speeded up by a method such as Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Heisei 3-15980, "Method of developing different notations and synonyms for character string search". However, even if these methods are combined to perform a synonym / different notation search process for a plurality of users, the following problem remains. By creating the automaton shown in FIG. 17, a synonym / different notation search process can be realized. However, in a system such as a “news clipping system” that integrates search conditions of a plurality of users and processes them with one automaton, it is possible to set whether or not to develop synonyms and different notations for each user. When the search processing for synonyms / different notations is performed using the automaton shown in this figure, it is indistinguishable whether or not the term has passed via synonyms / different notations, since the term acquisition state of the automata is the same. . For this reason, it is impossible to specify synonyms and different notations for each user. As shown in FIG. 18, this problem can be solved by expanding all synonyms and variants and registering them as individual terms.
There remains a problem that the number of combinations of different notations increases and the time required for creating an automaton increases accordingly.

The problem to be solved by the present invention is that, first, when a large amount of news is distributed, the search conditions can be changed automatically or after confirmation of the user, and the search conditions can be set with higher accuracy. Is to provide a system. Second, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for speeding up processing of a logical expression when a search condition expression is complicated. Third, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for realizing a search process of a different notation at a high speed when a search process of a plurality of users is performed.

[0012]

In order to cope with the first problem, an upper limit of the number of pieces of information to be acquired in a predetermined time or a predetermined number of days is determined. If the upper limit is exceeded, the information is further narrowed down. Means for requesting the user to set the additional condition. At this time, means for supporting the setting of search conditions by presenting keywords that appear frequently in the document to be delivered is used. Alternatively, a means for automatically changing the search condition is used.

Further, in order to cope with the second problem, terms which are logically ORed by a logical expression are regarded as the same term, and a means for judging the presence or absence of occurrence by one counter is used.

Next, in order to cope with the third problem, when performing processing of synonyms and different notations, two or more automata are prepared, and an automaton that processes terms having no different notation and a different notation are used. A search means is used in which the automata for processing the held terms are set to different automata.

[0015]

FIG. 1 shows a news clipping system (10) according to a first embodiment of the present invention.
The configuration diagram of 1) is shown. The processing contents of this system are as shown below. First, news resources (120-1,
From 120-2), the network (124) is periodically updated.
News is sent via. In the news clipping system (101), these news obtained via the network connection process (102) are received by the news collection process (103) and transmitted to the clipping process (108) in order. The user
Using a WWW browser (121), a mail reader (122), or the like, search conditions, information delivery means, maximum number of distributions, and the like are set in advance. In the news clipping system (101), the set search conditions and information delivery means are transmitted via the network (124).
It is received by the network connection process (102), the mail reception process (104), the WWW server process (10
The information is received by the retrieval condition acquisition process (106) via 5). The search condition acquisition process (106) analyzes the received content, and stores the search conditions and information such as information delivery means and the maximum number of news deliveries in the search condition / information delivery means DB (10).
7). The clipping process (108)
The search condition expression of each user is read from the search condition / information distribution means DB (107), and an engine for clipping processing is generated. And the news collection process (10
The clipping process corresponding to the search condition set by each user is performed on the news sent from 3),
Only news that matches the search condition is extracted and sent to the news distribution process (109). In the news distribution process (109), the information distributing means is read from the search condition / information distributing means DB (107), and the relevant information is distributed using the information distributing means of the user who matches the search condition expression. As one of the information distribution means, once a news meeting the search condition of each user is stored in the WWW browsing news DB (110), an HTML creation process (11
In 1), means for converting the content of news into a format that can be viewed with a WWW browser, that is, an HTML format, and displaying it from a WWW server process (105) to a WWW browser (121) via a network (124) is provided. is there. As the second information distribution means, means for converting the content of the news to be distributed into a mail format and transmitting the mail from the mail transmission process (112) to the designated address via the network (124) There is. The user can browse the news using the mail reader (122). As a third information distributing means, there is a means for storing news that matches a search condition in a news group specified by the user in the news DB (113). The user can use the news reader (123)
To browse the news via the network (124) and the news server process (114). The number of news distributed to each user every day is counted in the news distribution process (109). If this value exceeds the value set by the user, the news distribution is performed in the search condition change request process (115). Since the number exceeds the set value, the user is notified to change the search condition expression. The notification is transmitted by WWW, mail, and news in the same manner as news distribution.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the contents of the news clipping process. First, an initial search condition of a user who has already been registered is read out (201). Then, as initialization processing, the automaton for search processing is cleared, and all the read search conditions are registered in the automaton (202). The contents of the initialization process (202) will be described later with reference to FIG. Further, the information obtained by the news clipping system is checked, and if the search condition is obtained (203), the automaton that processes the search condition of the news clipping system is updated as update processing according to the obtained condition ( 204). The details of the update process (204) will be described later with reference to the flowchart in FIG. If the news has been acquired (205), clipping processing for this news is performed (206). The clipping process will be described later with reference to FIG. As a result of the clipping process, if there is any user who satisfies the set search condition (207), the contents of the news are distributed to these users (208). News distribution processing (20
The content of 8) will be described later with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When news is distributed, the number of news distributed to each user is counted in units of one day (2
09), when this value exceeds the set value (2)
10) The search condition change request processing is performed for the corresponding user (211). The check of the number of news distributions (209) will be described later with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When the end of the process is notified, the news clipping process ends. If it is other information, it is ignored and the next information is obtained and the processing is performed (21).
2).

A method of realizing processing of search conditions of a plurality of users using a search automaton described in the present embodiment by one search for text is described in Japanese Patent Application No. 8-201348, entitled "Document Search and Delivery Method and It can be realized using the method described in “Apparatus”. The registration of the search term in the automaton and the execution of the search process also use the method described in this known example.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the contents of the initialization processing. First, it is checked whether or not a search condition exists (301), and if so, the stored search condition information is read (302). From the read search condition information, information on search conditions such as search terms and logical conditions necessary for the search is extracted (303), and the extracted terms are additionally registered in a search automaton (304).

The search condition information is stored in the search condition storage file (401) in the format shown in FIG. The search condition name (402) is information for identifying the search condition. The logical condition (403) indicates a logical combination condition of the set search terms. In the case of AND, a logical product, that is, it is determined that the search condition is satisfied only when all the terms appear. In the case of OR, logical OR, that is, if any one of the terms appears, the condition is satisfied. synonym·
The different notation (404) sets whether or not a synonym and a different notation of the set search term are also used as the search term.
"Same" indicates that synonym expansion is performed, and "different" indicates different notation expansion. Number of search terms (405)
Indicates the number of set search terms. Search terms (4
In 06-1, 2), search terms are described in order. In the information delivery method (407-1, 2, 3), if distribution of an HTML document via the WWW is desired, "HTML" is described, and then the number of days for storing news on the server is specified. In the example of this figure, storage for five days is specified. When delivering using the mail system, write "MAIL" followed by the mail address of the delivery destination. In the example of this figure, "tarou@hitachi.co.jp" is set as the mail address. When storing in a specified newsgroup, "NEWS" is described at the beginning, followed by the name of the newsgroup to be stored. In the example of this figure, "hita
The distribution news will be stored in the newsgroup "chi.tarou". The maximum number of distributions (408) sets the maximum number of news that the user receives in one day.

The user interface for setting the search condition has the contents shown in FIG. The content shown here is W
It is an example of a display screen when inputting on a WW browser. Here, the user determines a search condition name (501), and AND (502) or OR (5) as a search logical condition.
03), and set search conditions such as a search term (504). Further, as a news distribution method, for mail transmission, MAIL (505) is specified, and a destination address (506) is specified. For browsing on WWW, H
TML (507) is specified, and the number of storage days (508) is specified. For news distribution, NEWS (50
Select 9) and specify the newsgroup (510) of the distribution destination. Furthermore, the maximum number of distributions per day (511)
Is set, and the transmission button (512) is clicked, whereby the set contents can be transmitted to the news clipping system. If the cancel button (513) is clicked, the settings are cancelled.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the contents of the updating process. First, the received search condition is read (6
01). Further, the contents of the search condition are analyzed (602), and it is determined whether or not the search condition matches a registered search condition name (603). If they match, the entry of the search term registered under the matching search condition name is deleted from the search automaton (604). After the deletion, a new search condition is additionally registered (605). If it is a newly registered search condition name, a search term is additionally registered as it is in the search automaton (60).
5). After registration in the automaton, the search conditions are converted into a format similar to the search condition storage file (401) shown in FIG. 4, and then stored in the search condition / information distribution means DB (60).
6). The processing shown in Japanese Patent Application No. 8-201348 "Information Search and Delivery Method and Apparatus" can be applied to the processing of adding and deleting search terms to an automaton.

The search automaton and the appearance term counter for each user shown in FIG. 7 are such that the user 1 has {"search"&"inspection"} as the search conditions and the user 2 has {"search"
& (“Information” | “news”)｝ is set (here, & indicates a logical product and | indicates a logical sum). The automaton shown in this figure is an automaton in which the state changes according to the character input from the text to be searched, and when there is no transition destination (that is, at the time of failure)
Is omitted. Also, by setting the same number counter (701) for the appearance term of the search term set by the user 2 for "information" and "news", the value of this counter can be checked for the logical sum part of the logical expression. Since it can be realized, high-speed processing can be performed.

The clipping process can be realized by inputting a character string in news into the automaton shown in FIG. When a character string “Search for news and check contents” is input to this automaton, 4
The state of the automaton becomes a term hit state by the character of "su" of the character, the character of "the character" of the tenth character, and the character of the "examination" of the sixteenth character. By following the link, it is possible to determine which user's term is being hit by which user.

When the first character of the term matches, the position is recorded, so that when the state where the terms match is reached, the start position and end position of the hit term can be obtained. Can be. The location information of the hit term is used for highlighting the term.

For synonyms / different notations, an automaton is created with the configuration shown in FIG. If the search condition set by the user specifies the development of synonyms / different notations, and if “news” is set as the search term, the synonym “report” is different as shown in this figure. Register in the automaton (801) for non-notation. When "news" has a different notation, an automaton for different notation (8) constituted by a method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 3-15980, "Method of Different Notation and Synonym Expansion for Character String Search", etc.
02). By using the text as input to a plurality of automata in this way, it is possible for a user who uses different notation development and a user who does not use it to coexist. By using this method, the terms of each user can be extracted by scanning the text once for each automaton regardless of the increase in the number of users. In addition, since the logical expressions must be checked for the number of users, if the number of users increases, the ratio of term extraction processing by the automaton to the whole becomes small. Is not expected to have a significant effect on

FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing the contents of the news distribution process. For news to be processed,
Process the hit users in order. First, it is checked whether there are any remaining users to be processed (90).
1) If not, the process ends. Next, the news distribution method of the user to be processed is read out (902), and W
If distribution by WW is set (903), WW
The distribution processing by W is performed (904). For distribution on the WWW, news to be distributed is converted into HTML, which is a standard format of documents on the WWW, and then converted via a WWW server.
This is realized by displaying on the user's WWW browser.
If the mail delivery method is set (905),
News is distributed by mail (906). News distribution by e-mail is realized by transmitting the e-mail address of the destination user and the news body to the mail server. The user can see the news delivered by the mail reader. If the delivery by news is specified (907), the delivery is realized by storing it in the specified news group (908). The user
A news reader can connect to the news clipping system and read the news delivered by specifying the newsgroup name.

FIG. 10 is an example of the news that has been distributed. In this figure, a distribution result is displayed using a WWW browser. 1001 is a list of distribution news, 1
When the news 002 is selected, the content of the news is displayed as indicated by 1003. Highlight processing is performed on search terms that have been hit, such as 1004 and 1005. The highlight processing is realized by embedding highlight information (highlight tag in HTML) at a hit position of a search term acquired by the search automaton.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a process for checking the number of news distributions. First, the counter i of the number for managing the user is initialized (to "1") (110).
1). Next, it is checked whether the user i has already been requested to change the search condition (1102). User information is managed in a news distribution management file. The contents of the news distribution management file will be described later with reference to FIG.
As a result of the check, if the transmission has already been performed, the next user is checked. If not transmitted, it is checked whether the number of news transmitted to the user i exceeds a set value (1103). If the number of news transmitted here exceeds the set value, the user is requested to change the search condition (1104). The processing content of the search condition change request will be described later with reference to FIG. Next, the counter i of the user management number is increased by one (110
5) Check whether the next user exists (1)
106). If it exists, the process returns to step 1102; otherwise, the process ends.

FIG. 12 shows the contents of a news distribution management file for managing the number of news distributions. Number of users (1201) and user number management table (1202)
, A change request notification management table (1203), a search condition setting date and time (1204), a maximum distribution news number management table (1205), and a distribution news number management table (1206). The change request notification management table (1203) is in an unreported state when the user updates the search condition, and is set to be notified when the search condition change notification is performed. The set date and time (1204) stores the date and time when the search condition was changed. Since the maximum distribution news number management table (1205) is received together with the search condition,
Set at the same time as the search condition is set. The delivered news management table (1206) records the number of news transmissions after the change of the search condition. Therefore, the average number of news distributions per day can be obtained by dividing the value of the distributed news number management table by the number of days elapsed from the set date and time. If this value exceeds the value in the maximum news distribution management table,
It is determined that the number of news distributions per day has exceeded the set value. The start of the determination is set on the system side after 5 days and the like and used. Alternatively, the number of days until the start of the determination may be included in the user setting conditions.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing the contents of the search condition change request processing. First, a word that appears in the news distributed so far is checked (1301). Among these words, words that do not match the search terms in the search conditions are obtained, and words having a high appearance frequency are obtained (1302). A method for extracting words common to a plurality of documents and classifying the documents is disclosed in
53121 “Method of Classifying Document Information and Document Information Classifying Apparatus” can be used. Then, a search condition is generated by combining these words and the search terms in the search condition with a logical product, and when the generated search condition expression is used, the number of news items that match is searched. If the number of news obtained here is less than the maximum number of news distributions, this search condition formula is used as a search condition change plan (13).
03). At this time, if the minimum number of distributions is set in advance and no news is distributed below the minimum number of distributions regardless of which term is selected from the distributed news, if the narrowing down capability is too high It is also possible to use a method in which a judgment is made, a plurality of terms are combined by a logical sum condition, and a search condition is created when this condition and the original search condition are combined by a logical product condition. Then, by sending the created search condition change plan to the user, a change of the search condition is requested (1304).

FIG. 14 shows an example of the text transmitted when a search condition change request is made. This example is a request example for changing the search condition on the WWW. By selecting the displayed search condition, a news list (1401) meeting the condition is displayed. No. (1402) is selected and the conditional expression number (14
By inputting 03), the search condition is updated. New (1404) can be selected, and a new search condition formula (1405) can be created with reference to the presented search condition example. When transmitting, the transmission button (1406) is pressed. When the cancel button (1407) is pressed, the set contents are deleted.

As a second embodiment, the configuration of the system of the first embodiment may be changed, the search conditions may be changed, and then the changed contents may be notified.

FIG. 15 shows a second modification of the configuration of FIG.
FIG. 3 is a system block diagram of the embodiment of FIG. The changes are in Figure 1.
Of the search condition change request process (115) and the search condition change notification process (1).
17). Therefore, when the number of news distributions exceeds a predetermined value, the search condition is automatically changed, and the change result is notified to the user. If the user is satisfied with the notified change content, there is no need to give an instruction to change the search condition, and another search condition may be set only when there is dissatisfaction.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the second embodiment. The difference from the flowchart of FIG. 2 lies in that a search condition change process (213) and a search condition change notification process (214) are performed instead of the search condition change request process (211) of FIG. In the search condition change process (213), the search condition is automatically changed to a search condition change proposal created by the same method as the search condition change request process shown in FIG. Further, the search condition change notification process (114) is performed in the same manner as the search condition change request transmission of 1304 in FIG. As described above, by changing to a configuration in which the search condition is automatically updated, it is possible to reduce news arriving at the user as soon as possible. For example, this is effective when the number of storable documents is limited by the mail system.

[0035]

By using the present invention, it is possible to obtain only necessary news from a large amount of news and improve the speed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a news clipping system according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a news clipping process according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an initialization process.

FIG. 4 shows the contents of a search condition storage file.

FIG. 5 is an example of a search condition input screen.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an update process.

FIG. 7 is an automaton for an OR operation.

FIG. 8 is an automaton for synonym / different notation processing.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a news distribution process.

FIG. 10 is an example of news distribution by WWW.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a news distribution number check process.

FIG. 12 shows the contents of a news distribution management file.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a search condition formula change request process.

FIG. 14 is an example of a search condition formula change request.

FIG. 15 is a configuration diagram of a news clipping system according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart of a news clipping process according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 17 shows a configuration of a synonym / different notation processing automaton according to the related art.

FIG. 18 shows a configuration of a synonym / different notation processing automaton for comparison with the related art.

[Explanation of symbols]

101: News clipping system, 102: Network connection process, 103: News collection process, 104: E-mail receiving process, 105: WWW server process, 106: Search condition acquisition process, 107
... Search condition / information distribution means storage DB, 108 ... Clipping process, 109 ... News distribution process, 110
... WWW browsing use storage DB, 111 ... HTML creation process, 112 ... Mail sending process, 113 ... News DB, 114 ... News server process, 115
... search condition change request process, 116 ... search condition change process, 117 ... search condition change notification process, 120
... News resources, 121 ... WWW browser,
122: mail reader, 123: news reader, 12
4. Network network 1201 News distribution management file user number table 1202 News distribution management file user number table 1203 News distribution management file change request notification management table 1204
... Search condition setting date and time table of news distribution management file, 1205. Maximum distribution news number table of news distribution management file, 1206.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Mitsuru Akizawa 890 Kashimada, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside the Information & Communication Development Division, Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. Software Development Division

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A method for determining whether a document satisfies a search condition, which is a condition set in advance by a plurality of users, for document information distributed from time to time from each information source. A document search and delivery device having a document clipping means for performing a search and a news delivery means for delivering document information to a user determined to satisfy the search condition set by the document clipping means. If the maximum number of subscriptions is set and the number of document information exceeding the set value is delivered, search conditions are added or changed, and the number of delivery of document information after the change is reduced. A document search and delivery device comprising: 2. The document search / delivery device according to claim 1, wherein the document clipping means integrates search conditions registered by each user and forms a search term which is a character string to be searched included in the search conditions. A search automaton for extracting documents, a search automaton creation means for creating a counter that counts the number of appearances for each search term set by the user, and a search condition set by a plurality of users. Regarding the search terms to be combined, the presence / absence check is not performed for each search term, and a total value counter that counts the total number of occurrences of each search term using one counter is provided. A document retrieval / delivery device comprising: a logical sum integration means for determining whether a sum is established or not. 3. The document search and delivery device according to claim 1, wherein said search condition changing means notifies each user that news of a number equal to or greater than a value set for each user has arrived. And a search condition change request unit for requesting addition and change of search conditions, and a document search / delivery device which changes search conditions used by the document clipping unit after a user adds or changes search conditions. 4. The document search / delivery apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the search condition change request means extracts a plurality of common keywords from a hit document whose search condition is currently set, and extracts these keywords. Search condition generating means for creating a new search condition based on a search condition, search condition presenting means for presenting the created search condition to a user, and a search for changing the search condition by specifying a search condition that the user considers appropriate A document search and delivery device characterized by using condition changing means. 5. The document search / delivery device according to claim 3, wherein said search condition changing means is a new search condition creation unit based on a plurality of keywords extracted from a document obtained by a currently set search condition. A search condition automatic updating unit that changes the search condition and applies the changed condition to a search condition used in the subsequent document clipping unit, and a search condition change notification unit that notifies the user of the changed search condition. Document search and delivery device.