1. A computer implemented method for processing a request for a document search comprising: receiving a query for at least one document from an application programming interface wherein the query comprises a search term identifier value and a search term value; receiving a document summaries index file into a memory of a computer, the document summaries index file comprising an index portion and a records portion, the index portion comprising a plurality of document identifiers each identifying a document and the records portion comprising at least one record for each document identifier linked to a corresponding document identifier, each record having a structure comprising a name field, a type field, and a value field; processing the document summaries index file by a processor of the computer to ascertain for each record in the records portion whether the name field is equal to the search term identifier; determining whether the value field is equal to the search term value; and providing to the application programming interface that generated the query each document identifier where the name field is equal to the search term identifier and the value field is equal to the search term value.