Del Williams is the Dean of University Libraries at the University of Akron in Ohio. He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Richmond in Virginia, a Master of Science in Library Science from the University of Kentucky and a PhD in Library Science from the University of North Carolina. Prior to coming to Akron, he served as a cataloger at Washington and Lee University, Assistant Director of Libraries at Western Illinois University, and Director of Libraries at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In the course of his career, Williams has been actively involved in automating traditional libraries and has become very interested in the process through which these kinds of organizations adapt to change. He has been responsible for bringing OCLC to Washington and Lee, for local implementation of Illinet Online at Western Illinois, for bringing microcomputers and an OPAC to Huntsville, and for migrating from a stand alone automated system to OhioLINK, the inauguration of a virtual campus for distance learning, and the establishment of innovative teaching support systems at Akron. While, in each of these cases, the introduction of technology has been interesting, Williams believes that more important changes in the organizations he has served have taken place as the organization adjusted to accommodate technology, as people learned what the possibilities it provided and learned to exploit them, and as programming developed that could apply technology to meet local needs.

Williams writes and speaks often in areas relating to library management, distance learning, and interlibrary cooperation, including an appearance in 1998 at a conference at Tamkang University. His special interests relate to accreditation and other organizational evaluation tools and their relationship to the management of change within libraries and other traditional organizations. He has also taught courses in library schools and other graduate schools relating to management and leadership and consulted both in the United States and Thailand. He serves on OhioLINK's Library Advisory Council and is the past Chair of OhioNET's (Ohio's OCLC affiliate) Board of Directors. Williams and the staff of the library at the University of Akron have been actively involved in OhioLINK since its inception in 1992.