The paper will try to identify the various concurrent factors which, in the last years, have contributed to the increasing attention paid to the issue of reusable linguistic resources for natural language processing. The role of various major Organisations (EEC, Council of Europe, DARPA, NEH, etc.) will be examined, taking into account the reasons which seem to have stimulated their active participation. The recognition of the need of reusable linguistic resources by various sectors of "automated linguistic data processing" will also be considered as a catalyzer for the recent trend towards the cooperation of various scientific and professional A.
