Abstract: An information retrieval system for retrieving and processing data from a large-capacity, rotating recording medium at a high speed includes an RAM storing attribute data, address registers specifying RAM addresses, an attribute data operation unit, and an FIFO device enqueuing and sequentially outputting length information of the attribute data. By providing the FIFO device for obtaining the length information from the data read from the recording medium, the need to obtain this data by accessing the RAM is avoided and high speed retrieval becomes possible.