I'm new here, so I'm still running into unfamiliar situations.  Here's the latest:

A book of mine was requested by a member who had it on his WL.  One of his many conditions was, "no cats."  I met every other condition, but I have four cats, so I said I couldn't mail it.  What happens now?   I looked the book up in the club wish list, and saw that there were 2 members wishing.  Does this book immediately get offered to the second wisher?  Does it simply go back to my bookshelf?

I gave as my reason the fact that I have cats.   I assume (I hope!) this inability to meet the requestor's condition doesn't get me a black mark with PBS?

Thanks for your input. 

You absolutely did the correct thing by declining his request due to his conditions and you will not get a black mark.. That's what requestor conditions are for. Yes, your book will go to the next person in line.

Welcome to PBS! Since RC's are an optional, above and beyond PBS conditions, request there is no black mark for turning them down. Since there is another wisher for that book it will automatically be offered to them. If it wasn't on someone elses WL it would go back onto your shelf.

An Requestor Condition like that allows those with cat allergies and those of us with cats to peacefully coexist on this site.  He can avoid unpleasant symptoms and keeps his place in line, and you keep your place in the "sending" line.  It's a great feature, and you clicked on the right button.

This is assuming you clicked "Doesn't meet requestor conditions" and not "Cannot mail book"?

OOps,  I think I may have clicked "Cannot mail book," although I don't precisely remember.   I actually sent a PM to one of the librarians about this and that's what she suggested.  However, she didn't say what I should or can do about it. 

I also just looked in my Transaction Archive and the book appears with a red X, and it says "request canceled by sender."  Is this a bad thing?  Will it be held against me?  I was only trying to do the right thing.

Can I re-post the book, or is it disqualified forever?

Sorry if I'm making a big deal out of this, but I just joined in December and this is the first time anything has gone wrong, so I'm nervous about it.

Katherine,

You can re-post it.  It will probably be offered to the same person with the No Cats request.  Instead of clicking Cannot Mail, click Does Not Meet Requester Conditions.  That way it will get passed to the next person in line.

Thanks, everyone.  I've re-posted the book, and next time something like this happens I'll be more careful and hope to get it right. 

You may turn down as many RCs books as you wish.  But please be polite in the space that asks for the reason.  That does get sent to the requestor.   The site does count how many times you cancel requests outside of the "does not meet RC" category.  There is some number that gets flagged for review after this repeatedly happens.  Not just one. 

If you do cancel books, it is helpful to send a PM about why you did so from the transaction page.  This both explains what happened to the requestor and goes onto the book transaction record.  Reasons why (sorry, dog ate it or I dropped it in a puddle on the way to the PO) will explain the number of cancelations to the person reviewing the account if there are too many.

Polite?  Moi?  I'm always polite!

Seriously, though, I see no reason why anyone should be rude when explaining a reason for cancellation.   And thanks for the clarifications and suggestion about sending a PM.  I didn't do that this time because I didn't realize I was actually canceling. 

You'd be surprised, Katherine, how many find any excuse to be rude to those with RCs whether they are reasonable RCs or not.