Human centered systems in the perspective of organizational and social informatics -- Rob Kling In 1993, the term "digital libraries" was popularized when it became the focus of a $24 million research program jointly sponsored by ARPA, NASA, and NSF. Many computer scientists, in fields such as human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, information retrieval, and information systems, who had not previously been concerned with the design of libraries became keenly interested in this research opportunity. Imaginative entrepreneurial computer scientists and information scientists soon began organizing research conferences on digital libraries, and a new field was soon born.