Pakama Ncume works as a Sound Archivist at Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, Stellenbosch University.

After completing her B.A (Music Education) degree at the then University of Transkei, she enrolled for Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Science (PGDIPLIS) at the University of Cape Town. On completion of the diploma, she moved back to the Eastern Cape. Because the area had few libraries, jobs in this field were scarce. With the advantage of having two professions (educator and librarian), she then took a teaching post at Nozuko Senior Secondary School in Mthatha. It was during her time as an educator that Pakama decided to further her studies and enrolled with the University of Transkei for an honours degree in Library and Information Science, a degree she completed in 2004.

She later joined an NGO, Room to Read South Africa in Pretoria as a Programme Manager for the Reading Room Programme. Her main responsibility was facilitating implementation of school libraries and conducting teacher trainings on library management in various regions of Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape. Because the schools had no librarians, teachers had to be librarians too. With all the teaching responsibilities, it was not easy for them to also read all the librarianship books available. It was because of this gap that Pakama started to write simplified step by step guides and manuals for school teacher librarians on library management, library activities and library sustainability for two NGO’s (Room to Read and African Solutions to African Problems)

Having gained experience in community developmnet work, Pakama joined a social facilitation company Masimanyane Community Developers as a Social Facilitator. In 2013, Pakama started working at Walter Sisulu University where she was appointed as a Music Librarian and Sound Archivist. Pakama was responsible for starting and setting up the sound archive that comprised mainly of LP’s that the university had received as a donation from SABC (sound recordings that were used on air by former Radio Transkei and Capital Radio). She was also responsible for digitizing the sound recordings. In 2017, she joined AOI also for the same role of a Sound Archivist, mainly responsible for digitizing a wide collection of sound records including reel to reel tapes, LP’s, tape cassettes etc.