I think (this is only my opinion as this has been discussed before) it would take significant programming, more than we'd want them to waste time on to adjust the system to take into account the weekends and holidays when as some will point out you can use PBS postage and still mail it out on any day...

You have 2 days after the mail by date to mark the book mailed.  If that falls on the Mon holiday or Sun than you could print the lable and mark it mailed to keep it from timing out.  Just PM the member or use the printed postage or stamps to stick in the blue box. If you know a holiday is coming up and you're not sure if you can mail before it you can also hold off on accepting a request right away. It gives you 5 days to accept.  A lot of people let requests sit for a bit to get them to payday or more time to go to the PO.

I went to the bank today, totally forgetting what day it was.  I also spent most of the day wondering where my postal carried was.  Guess my 4 packages will go out tomorrow!! Ugh!!

I found out today that the automated machines don't do media mail. But I did get 2 out, the rest will go out tomorrow morning. I've started saying I'll mail them on Tuesday if I get any requests over the weekend, in case life jumps me on Monday.

I went to the bank and the PO today. Just because the mail won't start moving until tomorrow doesn't mean that it wasn't mailed.  If you use your carrier, then just adjust your mail day here. With 5 days to accept and 5 days to mail, plus two to mark them mailed, that's a lot of leaway to miss a holiday.

Now I know why the post office was such a mess though! I was awestruck by the backed-up, overflowing drop slots and the boxes and boxes of mail stacked around the lobby. You'd think someone would at least come in to unjam the slots and drag the drop off stuff into the back room. 

Celina - you can kind of do MM on the APCs you just need to make sure your weight is correct when you print the label from PBS, then use the print other stamp option.

There are post offices open 24/7.  There is one here.  It's all the way at the airport and I've used it only in emergencies.  If you're from a smaller city you might not have one that is open on Sundays or Holidays.  Heck, you might not have one that is open on Saturdays or only open at certain hours during the week (I have one of those that is only open from 1-330pm but the clerk gets a 15 minute break during that time.

But you can use a scale and PBS postage and mail the book whenever you want, even if it's the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. 

Ah, the beauty of the Internet.

I found out today that the automated machines don't do media mail.

Actually, they do.  The option is called "Print Stamps" - you can print out a stamp for $2.23 (up to 1#), write "Media Mail" on the package, and drop it in the box.   There is often another scale in the lobby that will tell you the media mail cost for packages up to 15# or so.

I think it's personally a worthless "holiday'. The PO likes to make up holidays I swear. :P

Also, I generally just drop books in the blue boxes, which are open all the time--so you wouldn't want to eliminate any days of the week on the 'mail by date' dropdown because you CAN--or at least some people can--mail books any day of the week if you use printable postage or stamps on the books.  As others have said, there are some big POs that are open 24/7. My little suburban PO has the lobby with an APC open 24/7 and the inside window is even open a half-day on Saturday.

And there's always postal stuff going on behind the scenes. For example, I dropped a couple books that I'd used printable postage on into a blue box on Sunday, thinking that they probably wouldn't be collected from the box til today, what with the holiday and all. But I noticed when I checked 'details' this morning that they were actually picked up AND scanned at some distribution center at 11 pm Sunday night! Cool beans.

Cheryl

Heck. If you put postage on the book and stick in your mail box and it sits there for a day, technically it's still mailed.  Just make sure to adjust the date if you use the printed postage.

OK, I'm going to try the print stamps thing, sometimes my "no child time" happens on a Sunday. When I tried the "other" option, all it gave me was the 3-day mail, which was even More expensive. And I had a hungry little man with me, so I couldn't do much exploring...

When you chose the OTHER option, you put in the amount you want the stamp to be -- you have to know ahead of time what denominations you want the stamps to be based on how much your package weighs.