James F. Williams, II: Biographical Sketch

James F. Williams, II has been Dean of Libraries at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1988. His career includes 13 years as a Medical Librarian and 23 years in research library administration. His research interests include health sciences librarianship, strategic planning, collaborative collection development,leadership in research libraries, resource sharing & networking, and
digital scholarship.

He has been a member of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine, and a Visiting Scholar and Senior Fellow at UCLA's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

He is past Chair of the Greater Western Library Alliance, a past member of the Board of Directors of Educom, and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). He is past chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), Chair of the PubMed Central Advisory Board at the National Library of Medicine, and a member of the Board of Visitors for Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Portal: Libraries and the Academy.

He was awarded the Melvil Dewey Medal by the American Library Association in 2002.

He is Chair of the Board of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (the Alliance), is a past member of the Board of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, and he is currently a member of the Board of the Boulder Community Hospital and the Boulder United Way. He is also a Trustee of the Denver Art Museum. He holds baccalaureate and graduate degrees from Morehouse College and Atlanta University.