The Parliament of Ghana Library is a Special Library. Unlike other parliamentary libraries, this library is not a Depository Library. Before independence in 1957, there had been a Library to collect and keep custody of the Legislative Assembly documents. The National Assembly recognized the need to keep and expand this facility until February 24, 1966, when the coup that overthrew President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana disrupted the otherwise smooth development of the Library. The Second and Third Parliaments made efforts to revamp the Library but those efforts did not materialize before their governments were overthrown.
At the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1993, the Library of the National Assembly at the old Parliament House (now housing the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ)) bequeathed its collections to the Library of the Parliament of Ghana to support the work of the Fourth Republican Parliament. Even though the First Parliament of the Fourth Republic was transacting parliamentary business at the Accra International Conference Centre, their information needs were served from the old National Assembly (Parliament) House Library.
The Parliament of Ghana Library finally relocated to a room designated for Reading Room at the Foyer of Chamber Block in 1995 with collections salvaged from the old Parliament Library, government institutions and donations from individuals and organisations. With assistance from individuals, government and Non-governmental organisations the library's collection was developed to accommodate about six hundred (600) materials made up of books, periodicals, fact sheets and policy papers covering all subject fields. Parliament owes a debt of gratitude for generous assistance received from organisations both local and international in its development. In 1996 through the donation of money by UNICEF the Library was able to acquire a computer, photocopier and electric typewriter. It is also worthy of note that Friedrich-Ebert Foundation also assisted the library with books, journals, furniture, provided and paid one-year subscription fees for free usage of internet facility by library users.
The Library, after its relocation in 1995 to a Reading Room in the Chamber Block with few furniture, has now been transformed to a state-of-the-art facility at the First Floor of the Mid-East Wing Bay of the Tower Block (Job 600). The Library can now boast of a modern library edifice which meets International standards, surfed with computers for users and over 40 seats for users and air-conditioning systems. The Library now has over 5,000 books on the work of parliament and parliamentary procedures, parliamentary documents such as Parliamentary Committees Reports, Loan and other Agreements among many others.
From the early beginning of just one (1) staff (Assistant Librarian) at the old Parliament House in 1993, the strength of the staff has grown both in quantity and quality. Currently, the Library can boast of a staff strength of seven (7), that is five (5) professional and two (2) para-professional Librarians, five administrative and support staff and with a number of National Service Personnel posted to the library yearly. These staff are distributed to the three functional Units of the Library - Readers Services, Technical Services and Parliamentary Records and Archives Units.
The Parliament of Ghana Library has taken advantage of developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT) to revolutionize its operation to meet the information needs of its users, particularly the Members of Parliament, their Research Assistants and the Staff of the Parliament of Ghana. There are computer workstations at the Mezzanine for research purposes accompanied by high speed wifi for users of the library for free.
