  The increasing use of `new methods' in NLP, which the NeMLaP conference
series exemplifies, occurs in the context of a wider shift in the nature and
concerns of the discipline. This paper begins with a short review of this
context and significant trends in the field. The review motivates and leads to
a set of requirements for support software of general utility for NLP research
and development workers. A freely-available system designed to meet these
requirements is described (called GATE - a General Architecture for Text
Engineering). Information Extraction (IE), in the sense defined by the Message
Understanding Conferences (ARPA \cite{Arp95}), is an NLP application in which
many of the new methods have found a home (Hobbs \cite{Hob93}; Jacobs ed.
\cite{Jac92}). An IE system based on GATE is also available for research
purposes, and this is described. Lastly we review related work.
