What is the difference? they both have a date to mail by, one is easy to see - one you have to scroll over the !exclamation mark to see.

If it just says accepted, it means the person said they could mail in 2 days.  If it says will mail by, they picked a later date to mail.

One is the date that the member said that they would mail the book by. (the visible one)

The other is the date that the system gives them to mark the book mailed before it auto cancels the request. (the exclamation point).

They are not the same date. They are not even always the same amount of days apart ... i forget the exact number but it is no less than 2, and depending on how many days they picked before they said they could mail it, it might be as many as 5 more, I think.

Its just the way the site differentiates between the accepted to mail in 2 days and the accepted and will mail later options.

From the Help Center:

To do this:

• Log into PBS
• Click My Account in the main toolbar at the top of the site.
• Click the "Books I've Requested" tab under the Message from the Librarian.
• The status of each request you have submitted appears In the "speech bubble" on the right.
  • "Requested on:" is the date and time that you submitted the request (or that the request was re-submitted by the system if the original request was canceled)
• There are three steps to the sending process (acceptance - printing - mailing).
  • Acceptance
    • If you see "Waiting for Member"
      • this means the sender has not yet agreed to send the book (he or she has 5 days to respond).
    • If you see "Accepted" (with NO "will mail-by" date specified)
      • this means that the sender has agreed to send the book by clicking "I can mail in the next 2 days", and has 5 days from the date of acceptance in which to mark the book mailed.  (The deadline is at the end of the fifth day.)
    • If you see "Accepted" ("will mail-by" date specified)
      • this means that the sender has agreed to send the book by clicking "I can mail later", and has until 2 days after the mail-by date shown to mark the book mailed.  (The deadline is at the end of the second day.)