A prototype front-end system—Cirt—which permits weighting, ranking and relevance feedback on a traditional IR system—Data—Star—is described and discussed. Cirt is based on an integrated theory of search term weighting, document ranking and modification of weights based on relevance feedback. Previous laboratory tests on various aspects of the theory have led to the need for further evaluation in an operational environment; the intention of Cirt is to make such evaluation possible. The operating environment is described and the design of the system is discussed, including the machine to machine host/front-end dialogue, the user interface and some aspects of the programming. A project currently under way to evaluate Cirt against traditional retrieval methods under operational conditions is described. The article concludes with a brief word on the future prospects for this type of retrieval.