Sir Arku Korsah Law Library

The Sir Arku Korsah Law Library is essential to the Law Programme at the University. In developing the library collections, the Faculty has two priority objectives: To provide a comprehensive, research level, retrospective and current collection of Ghanaian and African law materials; and To provide the classic professional texts relating to other common law countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
Students have access to photocopying, microfilm and microfiche equipment, commercial databases on CDROM and the Library's databases, which will be developed as a basis for a Ghana legal information service. The Library staff build and maintain the collections on a reserve and loan system; they help students to find the meanings of legal citations and to locate the cited material. In addition, they train students in using a wide range of printed and electronic indexes and databases. The service priority of the Library staff is to assist students in using efficiently the reference and research materials that are professional tools of successful lawyers.

Brief History
The Faculty of Law Library building at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, was purposefully erected and completed by the University with funds provided by the Ghana Educational Trust Fund (GETFund) as a requirement for the establishment of a Law Faculty in KNUST. The building was commissioned on Tuesday 19th September 2006. The Library was later named after the first black Chief Justice of Ghana (then Gold Coast) in 1956, Sir Kobina Arku Korsah (1894-1967), for his immense contribution to Legal Education in Ghana. The establishment of the Law Library was to give prospective lawyers access to legal and other information and research materials to enhance their legal education.

The Sir Arku Korsah Law Library started as a section in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Main University Library in 2003. It was later moved to the Faculty of Law with its complete set of Staff in August 2009 to stress the importance of library and information services to law research, teaching, learning and knowledge dissemination. The Law Library is an integral part of the Faculty of Law, KNUST, Kumasi, and is financed by the Faculty. The Library is considered a laboratory of a scientific institute, where the apparatus for the law students are the classic law books, case law reports and journals that are available in complete sets (HNLU, 2010). The students would perform legal research like experiments to augment their studies using this equipment (law materials).

The materials available impact the teaching and learning process as both lecturers and students obtain vast information for teaching and learning from the Library.

Print Resources

The Library's print resources include textbooks, periodicals/journals and theses. Information about the resources can be accessed anywhere with internet connectivity via this web address: libcat.knust.edu.gh. The books have been organised/arranged on the shelves using the Library of Congress Classification Scheme (LC). Books can be located in the Library by their class numbers as follows:

K Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence

KB Religious law in general. Comparative religious law. Jurisprudence

KBM Jewish law

KBP Islamic law

KBR History of canon law

KBU Law of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy See

KD-KDK United Kingdom and Ireland

KDZ America. North America

KE Canada

KF United States

KG Latin America - Mexico and Central America - West Indies. Caribbean area

KH South America

KJ-KKZ Europe

KL-KWX Asia and Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Area, and Antarctica

KRX Ghana

KZ Law of nations

Primary Sources

Legislation
Case law
Indexes and Digests
Government Publication

Secondary Sources

Textbooks
Journals
Dictionaries
Encyclopaedia

List of Cases
    1.         The Supreme Court of Ghana Law Reports from 1997/98 to 2012
    2.         Ghana Law Reports 1959-1994
    3.         Appeal Cases from 1875/76-2004
    4.         The Kings Bench from 1901-1951
    5.         The Queen's Bench from 1871/72-1989
    6.         Chancery Law Reports and Probate vol. 1878-1988
    7.         All England Law Reports 1558/1935-2013
    8.         Lloyds Law Reports
    9.         Current Cases of Ghana 2005
    10.       Hein Online – digital access to legislation, caselaw and journals

Law Journals
    1.         KNUST Law Journal
    2.         Australian Journal of Law and Society
    3.         African Journal of International and Comparative Law
    4.         The Company Lawyer
    5.         European Law Review
    6.         European Business Organization Law Review
    7.         European Journal of Law Reform
    8.       Human Rights Quarterly: A Comparative and International Journal of the Social  Sciences, Humanities and Law
9.         European Business Law Review
    10.       European Review of Private Law
    11.       Canadian Journal of Law and Society
    12.       Civil Justice Quarterly
    13.       Commonwealth Law Bulletin
    14.       Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice
    15.       Canadian Family Law Quarterly
    16.       European Intellectual Property Review
    17.       International and Comparative Law Quarterly
    18.       International Journal of the Sociology of Law
    19.       Hofstra Law Review
    20.       Dalhousie Law Journal
    21.       Columbia Law Review
    22.       Europe Solutions for Separation Scientists
    23.       Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
    24.       The Law Reports 2001, 2002 and 2004: Queen’s Bench Division
    25.       The All England Law Reports
    26.       The Yale Law Journal
    27.       UNB Law Journal
    28.       Lloyds Law Reports: Insurance and Reinsurance
    29.       Planning Appeal Decisions
    30.       Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues
    31.       Law students’ Journal: Faculty of law University of Ghana
    32.       Queens’ Law Journal
    33.       Osgoode Hall Law Journal
    34.      Tulsa Journal of Comparative and International Law
    35.       The Supreme Court Law Review
    36.       Review of Constitutional Studies
    37.       Journal of Legal Action Group
    38.       Journal of the British and Irish Association of Law Liberation
    39.       Journal of International Economic Law
    40.       Ottawa Law Review
    41.       University of Ghana: Student Law Journal
    42.       ACP-EEC Convention of Lome
    43.       Industrial Cases Reports
    44.       Review of Ghana Law
    45.       The Weekly Law Reports
    46.       Guernsey Law Journal
    47.       Bucks New University: Human Science and Law
    48.       Undergraduate Course Portfolio
    49.       The Structure of the Ghanaian State
    50.       Copyright Magazine: A publication of the Copyright Office of Ghana
    51.       Amicus Curiae: Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies

Online databases

There is a wide range of online resources subscribed to by the KNUST Library. These resources provide users access to electronic journals, databases, books, etc. The resources can be accessed on-campus within the KNUST network and off-campus with user credentials. To access KNUST E-resources off campus, Staff should log in to ocl.knust.edu.gh with their university email address and password and students with their Students' ID and password.

HeinOnline is a premier law online database containing more than 155 million pages and 200,000 titles of legal history and government documents in a fully searchable, image-based format.

Below are some multidisciplinary and specialised databases available to users.

Annual Reviews - http://arjournals.annualreviews.org

Subjects: - Biomedical sciences, physical sciences and social sciences

Beech Tree Publishing - www.ingentaconnect.com