James F. Williams II is a retired American librarian.[1] [2] He was the Dean of Libraries at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1988-2017.[3]
He holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from Morehouse College (1966)[4] and a master's degree in library science from Atlanta University. His wife, Nancy Allen, is also a librarian, the Dean of Libraries at the University of Denver.[5]
He is a former member of the editorial board of the journal .[6] He was on the board of directors of the Association of Research Libraries and chaired the ARL's Strategic Direction Steering Committee on Influencing Public Policies for 2010–2013.[7] He is on the board of visitors for the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh,[8] and has been a member of the visiting committee for the libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Libraries' National Council of Washington University in St. Louis,[9] and a trustee of the Denver Art Museum.[10]
In 2002, Williams won the Melvil Dewey Medal of the American Library Association for his "distinguished service to the profession of librarianship".[11]
In 2017, Williams was honored by the Colorado Association of Libraries with their Career Achievement Award. [12]