Have you heard the old adage that people look like their pets? Visit our Reading Room display case for a glimpse at the variety of pets kept by Cornell Law School faculty and see if you can match each pet to its rightful owner. From iguanas to horses to dogs, the critters vary from large to small, slippery to cuddly.

Perhaps at some point in your law school career, your professors made mention of their pets and you can draw on those memories. If not, no worries – the law library will be providing clues on Facebook and Twitter throughout the month of November. Make your matches, complete the contest entry form, and submit it at the Circulation Desk during regular library hours for a chance to win a $50 gift card to Amazon. Contest forms are available at the display case. Contest ends November 30, 2011.

October is Information Literacy Awareness Month! Cornell students are warmly invited to show off your sleuthing skills for a chance to win a $25 iTunes gift card. The contest is open to all students. Check out Facebook for a CLUE that will help you answer the question below!
Rulloff’s Restaurant in Collegetown is named after an infamous 19th century Ithaca resident, Edward Rulloff, who was convicted and hanged for murder in 1871. Was he guilty or innocent?
• Find credible historical evidence to prove or disprove the 19th-century crimes of which Rulloff was accused.
• Provide a 150-word synopsis of your findings, with one credible citation to verify your research, and enter to win a chance at a $25 iTunes gift card.
• (Hint: The back of the restaurant menu does not qualify as a credible source.)

Make your submission at trickortruth by November 7th to be entered in the iTunes gift card drawing.
Good luck—and Happy Halloween!

The Law library is hosting an open house for all students on Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 11:00am-1:00pm, in the Gould Reading Room. Library resources and services will be featured at stations throughout the room, including:

• An introduction to “hidden” online databases;
• Information regarding personalized research consultations;
• An overview of upper level research classes;
• Our open access repository of Cornell student and faculty scholarship;
• Demonstrations of our library catalog and interlibrary loan services;
• A rare book display;
• And more.

Students who visit every station will receive a library pen and be entered in a grand prize drawing to win their choice of two round trip Campus-to-Campus bus tickets to New York City, or a limousine wine tour for 2-4 people. Other prize drawings will feature $25 gift certificates to local businesses including Gimme! Coffee, Cinemapolis, and Purity Ice Cream. Drawings will occur at 1pm; students need not be present to win.

A book sale will be held simultaneously with the open house. All books will be available for $1 at the East end of the Reading Room.

Join us for some quick, informative fun and snag a seasonal snack from Cornell Orchards!

The Legal History and Rare Books Section (LH&RB) of the American Association of Law Libraries, in cooperation with Cengage Learning, announces the third annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition.  Students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in law, library science, history, or related fields are eligible to enter the competition. Essays may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives. The entry form and instructions are available at the LH&RB website: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/lhrb/.  Entries must be submitted by March 15, 2011. The winner will be announced by April 15.

The winner will receive a $500.00 prize from Cengage Learning and up to $1,000 for expenses associated with attendance at the AALL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in July 2011.  The runner-up will have the opportunity to publish the second-place essay in LH&RB’s online scholarly journal Unbound: An Annual Review of Legal History and Rare Books.  Please direct questions to Robert Mead at libram@nmcourts.gov or Sarah Yates at yates006@tc.umn.edu.

Jim Bishop, 2L, has won an iPad from BNA!  He registered to receive BNA updates, along with thousands of other law students across the country.  And Jim was the winner!

If you want to receive BNA updates from US Law Week or on topics from banking to tax, labor law to mergers and acquisitions – go to http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/bna/subj/ and sign up for your choice of e-mail summaries.

Matthew Benner, a 3L, is the winner of the Halloween Research Competition!  Matthew’s prize is a $25 gift card for the Cornell Store.  Congratulations goes out to everyone who found the correct answer, Hayward v. Carraway, 180 So. 2d 758 (La. Ct. App. 1965).  And the moral of the case is…just because a house is abandoned and haunted, doesn’t mean you can break into it with impunity (shocking, I know)!

Haunted HouseEnter our research competition to win a $25 gift card to the Cornell Store! The rules are easy: email the answer to the question below to me (imh24@cornell.edu) by midnight on October 31, 2010. We will draw a winner from the pool of correct answers next week and announce it on the blog.  Everyone who enters wins a fun-size candy bar.

The Problem:

The town of Sleepy Hollow has an old mansion named “Rosebud.”  Rosebud was the family home of the Voorhees family, who during their heyday hosted the most extravagant parties and balls in the county.  The family was known for expensive tastes, furnishing Rosebud with elaborate chandeliers and paintings and once having flowers flown in from Brazil for a daughter’s sixteenth birthday party.  But over the years, the family gradually died off until only Samara Voorhees was left.  Uncomfortable living alone in the large house, she locked up Rosebud and moved to Panama to live off the family’s remaining money on a small island.  The house has been empty for 42 years, and neighborhood children now tell stories about the ghosts that supposedly haunt the house—a headless cat that sneaks up on you from behind and rubs against your legs, and Uncle Earl whom the family imprisoned in the attic for twenty years, eventually starving him to death, because they were embarrassed by his Tourette’s Syndrome, and he now takes revenge on the family by scaring anyone who tries to come near his attic.

Three local teenagers decide to test the ghost stories on Halloween to see if they are true, Ghost Hunters-style, arming themselves with cameras, snacks, and baseball bats.  Entering the house at 11 p.m. and finding everything quiet, the boys begin smashing one of the chandeliers by throwing their baseball bats at the ceiling.  The noise of a squeaking door upstairs finally scares the boys away.

The next morning Sleepy Hollow police receive a tip that the front door of Rosebud is wide open, swinging and banging in the wind.  Upon investigation, the police discover the damaged chandelier and one baseball bat labeled with a boy’s name.  The police interview the boy, who quickly confesses under the pressure and gives up the names of his compatriots in crime.

Back in Panama, Samara Voorhees, who regularly checks the Web site of the Sleepy Hollow Herald, learns of the damage to her chandelier and has her attorney file a lawsuit against the parents of the boys.  In court the parents argue they should not be held liable because the boys believed that Rosebud was abandoned, but they lose.  A judgment is entered against them for $46,793.15.

Locate the factually similar case that inspired the above the story.  Send me the name of the case and the citation in the regional reporter by midnight on Sunday, October 31 for a chance to win a $25 Cornell Store gift card.

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