Abstract
Kinokuniya Book Store Co., Ltd. has been operating a computerized information service called ASK since March 1972, using widely known commercial document files, such as CAC, POST, USGRA, COMPENDEX, INSPEC, etc. The ASK software version 1, developed during 1971, had been used until January 1975. On February 1975, the version 2 (namely ASK-II) replaced it and is now on operation. ASK-II was developed as a commercial system based on the experiences for three years, improving search quality, availability, economy and so on. The profile construction became very easy because of its recursive and intuitive structure. Furthermore the recall and precision ratios are considerably improved by various functions of the system, such as combination of weighting and logical formulae, designation of distance among words, keywords identification disregarding special characters, etc.
