New assistant director unexpectantly fulfills his dream at Kent Library

Born and raised in Kenya, Musa Olaka began his first day at the job as the new assistant director at Kent Library at Southeast Missouri State University on Feb 3. A life-changing poster hanging on the wall inspired him to become a librarian after thinking of becoming a teacher.

Before coming to Southeast, Olaka earned a doctorate degree in library science at the University of Missouri in 2010. From there, Olaka moved to Florida and became a librarian at the University of South Florida, where he worked in the Holocaust and genocide studies.

Olaka earned his master's degree when he was living in Kenya and worked at many different libraries during his time there. At first, Olaka thought about going to college to become a teacher. Olaka said he was interested in becoming a physical education teacher but realized that he could not study both physical education and geography at the same time. A friend suggested Olaka to study mathematics.

It was then when Olaka noticed something that changed his life.

"As we were working, we came across this flyer that was hung on the board," Olaka said. "They wanted librarians; they wanted people to study library studies."

After seeing the flyer, Olaka said he visited an office nearby and learned that only two students were needed. The classes were almost full.

"If it wasn't for that poster, maybe I would be a teacher somewhere," Olaka said. "But it was the best accident I have ever had in my life."

Olaka started his first week at Southeast working for only a day in a half after mother nature hit the campus with a powerful winter storm and Southeast officials decided to close the campus for three days. Olaka said that during his time at Mizzou, he only experienced one day of bad winter weather.

When asked about how he is enjoying Southeast, he said the school is amazing. What Olaka enjoys about Southeast is that it is a smaller university where one starts to learn everyone's face. Olaka said that coming back to Missouri from Florida was like coming back home and that he enjoyed his stay in Missouri when studying for his doctorate degree.

As the new assistant director, Olaka is responsible supporting the director, Dr. David Starrett, and growing collections in the library. He is also the head of the information services in the library.

"This is where we have a team of librarians who come to teach library instruction to students," Olaka said.

Olaka said that his job is perfect in many different ways because his colleagues make it great. He said that his favorite part of his job is being able to support faculty members' access to information. What he enjoys most is remembering the faces of the people in the community, whereas when he was at University of South Florida, the population was much higher.

"I feel like everyone I am walking with are like my sisters and brothers," Olaka said.

Starrett said that Olaka is a very positive person and is very good for the library.

"I see what he can bring to us in multiple ways," Starrett said. "One of them is just the experience working in a library, bigger libraries and different types of libraries, but also bring his background and experience at the library are great things for us to take advantage of here at Southeast."

Olaka said that he hopes more people choose to become librarians in the future because it is a great job where one gets to meet interesting people every day.