Hi there -

Today I received a request for two books, and I was really excited at first! Unfortunately, I'm a college student home on break and one of the books is in my apartment a hundred miles away and the other is at my home with me. I'd like to PM the requesting member, but I can't figure how to do that without accepting the request, which seems a bit dishonest to me!

Yes, eventually, I could mail the other, but it might not be until after the New Year, and I would definitely understand if that is too long to wait ... especially since I'm pretty sure there are other people out there who could mail it more quickly.

Anyway, I just need some advice, or a way to PM the member without accepting the request. Should I just accept the request and follow that up with a PM?

You cannot PM until you have accepted.

I would recommend putting your shelf on Vacation Hold or removing books from your shelf that you are unable to send within the PBS timeframes. You could jeopardize your account if you have too many cancellations since the Terms of Use require books on your shelf to be available.
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I would accept the request and then PM the requester and explain the situation.  If they don't want to wait then you cancel the request, which will take that book off your bookshelf. 

When are you going to be able to mail the book. You could let the request sit until it's close to timing out and then choose the 5 day mailing option then you get 2 additional days to mark it mailed.  The system gives you 5 days to accept a book request and it's ok to take those 5 days. Just accept the request before it times out. 

You can put a note in your profile and on your bookshelf header saying something like "If I'm not accepting your book request immediately it's because of the Holidays and I need a few more days before I can mail. I know the request is there" or something like that.  I've done this before when I'm just going away for a couple of days or have WL books that I posted but are cycling through wishers without being requested.  I've also seen it on other peoples shelves.

Now if you aren't going to be back home for like 2 wks then I would decline the request and put my shelf on hold. 

Thanks for the input ... I have accepted the request and PM'd the requesting member, telling her that I could ship one but not the other (unless she was willing to wait for it).

I think next time I'm away, I will put my whole shelf on hold rather than transport a box back and forth like I've been doing ... it's so easy for one to escape!