Who I am
I'm Yulia Brusova, a library associate at St. Louis Community College and a current MLIS student at Valdosta State University. I hold a Master's degree in Musicology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. My day-to-day work is at the circulation desk, where I'm in direct contact with the students and workflows that AI tools are actually supposed to serve.
I started using AI seriously in 2024 - first out of curiosity, then out of genuine conviction that these tools matter for library work. I also practice vibe coding: building functional tools through natural language prompts, without writing code. That hands-on experience changed how I think about AI - not as something to observe from a distance, but as something to build with, break, and understand from the inside.
You can connect with me on LinkedIn.
That's why I built this. A practitioner-first resource, honest about what AI can and can't do, built from real library experience, and grounded in the professional framework our field has actually developed for this moment. This curriculum is built on the ACRL AI Competencies framework and designed for library professionals at every level - whether you're just beginning to experiment with AI or looking to deepen a practice you've already started. My goal is simple: to help you develop the kind of calibrated, critical, genuinely useful relationship with AI that makes you better at the work you already care about.
Why this curriculum
The ACRL published its AI Competencies for Academic Library Workers in October 2025. It's a good document. But a framework document isn't a curriculum - it tells you what to know, not how to get there.
The Pulse of the Library survey (Clarivate, 2024) found that 69% of academic libraries were evaluating or integrating AI - and 32% of librarians had no training available at their institution. A third of our profession is navigating this shift without any institutional support. That gap is what this portal is for.
The Level 3 modules - vibe coding, workflow automation, agentic AI, systems integration - are content that simply doesn't exist anywhere else in the library sector, as of this writing. I spent time verifying that. The University of Hong Kong library has a vibe coding tab in their AI Literacy LibGuide - it's good and worth reading. But it's oriented toward students and researchers, not toward practitioners building tools for library work. That's the gap this fills.
What "practitioner voice" means here
It means I write from experience, not aspiration. When I say “at my circulation desk,” I mean a real place with real students asking real questions. When I describe a workflow, I've run it or something close to it.
It also means I try to be honest about when things don't work. AI hallucinates citations. It gives confidently wrong answers. It handles some tasks far better than others, and using it poorly can create more work than it saves. That's not a reason to avoid it - it's a reason to learn it well.
ACRL alignment
All modules are mapped to the ACRL AI Competencies for Academic Library Workers (October 2025) at the sub-competency level - not just the broad category labels. The curriculum also references the ARL Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence (2024), particularly Principle 4 - “No Human, No AI” - which I think is the most important single idea for library practitioners to internalize right now.
The curriculum is also aligned with ALA's Guidance on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Libraries and its six core values - Public Good, Intellectual Freedom, Privacy, Sustainability, DEIA, and Labor - which run through the ethics, privacy, discovery, vendor-evaluation, and labor modules. In short, this is an ACRL- and ALA-aligned curriculum: ACRL tells you what to know, and ALA's values tell you what to protect while you use it.
Modules and content are subject to change and ongoing updates as the AI landscape evolves.
Who this is not for
This portal is for academic library workers. It's not designed for public librarians (though much of Level 1 applies broadly), K–12 school librarians, or AI researchers. The examples, workflows, and framing are all academic library contexts - community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities.
What's next
All 18 modules are now published, including the full Level 3 track - Automating Repetitive Tasks, Agentic AI, Vibe Coding for Librarians, Systems Integration, and Your AI Strategy - and an applied module on AI, labor, and the library worker aligned with ALA's AI guidance. Content is reviewed and updated as the AI landscape evolves. Questions or want to get in touch? Use the contact form.