Dr. David K Allison

David Allison is Chairman of the Division of Information Technology and Communications at the National Museum of American History. The 12-member staff of the division manages collections and exhibitions in the areas of communications, computing, mathematics, photography, printing, graphic arts, numismatics, and electricity. David has a strong interest in exhibitions, and is currently project director for American Enterprise an exhibition being planned for opening in 2011. The 14,000 sq. ft. display will survey the history of American business and industry, including the information industry, from the late colonial period to the present. In the past, he was project director and lead curator for The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, an 18,000 square foot exhibition on the history of the American military from the 18th century to the present. It opened in 2004. Formerly he curated: September 11, 2001: Bearing Witness to History, Deep Blue, Digilab: a Digital Imaging Laboratory, Behind the Lines: The Universal Product Code at 25, and Information Age: People, Information and Technology. His publications include: The Price of Freedom: Americans at War (exhibition catalog), “Preserving Software in History Museums: A Material Culture Approach,” in Ulf Hashagen, et. al., eds., History of Computing: Software Issues (Berlin: Springer, 2002); “Universal Product Code in Perspective: Context for a Revolution,” in Alan L. Haberman, ed. Twenty-Five Years behind Bars. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); The ENIAC," in Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 63 (December 1999); “Archives of Data Processing: The National Museum of American History” in Archives of Data Processing History (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990); and New Eye for the Navy: The Origin of Radar at the Naval Research Laboratory (Washington: GPO, 1981).