Learn how to create an inexpensive, fun and effective offline marketing tool -- the bathroom stall newsletter. Presented at GaCOMO12 by Maureen Puffer-Rothenberg.

2. We Facebook, we tweet, we blog
ourselves into a stupor . . . Yet sometimes
we feel our patrons aren’t drawn to our
blogs and tweets. We have so much we
want to tell them, but How, oh How, might
we capture their attention?

3. Well. At some point, nearly every library patron, no
matter who he or she may be, will have to pee . . .

4. So Odum Library began posting a newsletter, the
Odum Commodum, in every one of our 65 bathroom
stalls, and above every urinal, We post 2 issues about
twice each month.

5. Following FSU’s example, we ran a contest to let students
name the newsletter. We received 375 entries, an
unprecedented response! Why did this never occur to us
before, combining a money prize with scatological humor?

7. We find it’s better to feature a collection, rather than
individual titles (which might be immediately checked
out).

8. tinyurl.com/OdumChat
tinyurl. com/OdumBugs
It’s a good idea to use custom URLs in the newsletter (they’re
tinyurl.com/OdumAbe
easy to make at tinyurl.com). That way students can remember
them, or easily plug them into their cell phones and
PDAs, without having to remember or text a long URL.

21. We had a couple complaints about people using their
phones in the restrooms . . . They were taking pictures of
QR codes. Maybe the QR codes aren’t such a good idea
for the bathroom stalls . . .

22. If there’s a lot of information about an event, it’s better
to use just the bare bones in the newsletter, so people
can read it quickly, and direct them elsewhere for more
extensive information . . .

23. Like this 

26. $14.79
$22.30

27. I like to use crrrrrazy typefaces, but I also have to edit
myself and think about readability.

28. We didn’t see an increase in graffiti because of the
Commodum (we don’t get a lot of graffiti anyhow), but
we do have a problem in the men’s rooms with guys
tearing them off the wall.

29. What is it with the guys in the restroom stalls? Why do
they tear down the Commodum? I’ve never been in
there myself of course, but a colleague tells me the
guys are transformed in there into Hulk-like creatures
and they can’t help tearing stuff up.

31. Maureen Puffer-Rothenberg
Authority Control & Description of AV
Resources
Odum Library, Valdosta State
University
Valdosta GA 31698
mpuffer@valdosta.edu
--with the support of the
Valdosta State University Office of Faculty
Scholarship