A personal-use (i.e., small-scale, individual-use), computer-based microfiche filing and retrieval system is described which differs principally from a large-scale literature or library system in that indexing is not based on document content but results from causal relations in the user's work-based activity patterns. Immediate retrieval of the full document gives the user a high level of awareness. Field experience indicated that the number of keywords needed is easily manageable (less than 200) and that ease of document location was enhanced over paper-file searching in two-thirds of the attempts. The application experience is of value in introducing automated retrieval into the general office environment.