I went on vacation hold while my son was in the hospital, because I didn't want to have to deal with going to the post office, obviously.  I was a little bummed when I realized I might also be missing out on getting wish list books because of the hold.  I know you can avoid that with auto-requests, but I didn't think of it and it would have taken a long time, anyway.

Is there a way to put your own shelf on hold but still accept books? If not, I think it would be a helpful option.

I'm not sure what you mean "put your shelf on hold but still accept books?" That's what using the auto-request feature for the WL does...and you can still order books that are already in the system and accept them if you want while you are on vacation hold, too. I have my account on hold and have all my books auto-requested on the WL, and have gotten quite a few since I put my account on hold.

Cheryl

With the new bookshelf changes, you can just change all you posted books to a hold and then you'll still get your wishlist books.  This is what I've been doing now.  I can't afford to ship any books right now, but I have credits and want to get my wishlist books.

Is there a way to do it the other way around?  I would like to be able to keep my bookshelf up and send out books but not accept any from my WL?  I don't want to take them off my WL and loose my place in line but I don't want to contribute to MT. TBR for a while.  I'd like to collect some credits for a bit.

Linda - I don't think you can do that yet but I do believe that's one of the features of the new wish list.  No one's really sure when that's gonna happen though.

Is there a way to do it the other way around?  I would like to be able to keep my bookshelf up and send out books but not accept any from my WL?  I don't want to take them off my WL and loose my place in line but I don't want to contribute to MT. TBR for a while.  I'd like to collect some credits for a bit.

There is a way, though it might be considered  an abuse of the system.  Simply put some impossibly picky conditions in place, such as "Books only accepted if accompanied by a box of chocolates, at least 2 pounds in weight, creams and carmels only, no nuts".    I imagine most members will click on the "does not meet conditions" button.

Ah, I see - the easiest thing would be to "mark all" on your shelf and then put everything on hold.  That's simple enough.

Layne said "With the new bookshelf changes, you can just change all you posted books to a hold and then you'll still get your wishlist books."

I just wanted to mention that I've talked to some other tour guides, and our best guess it that by doing this, you lose your place in the FIFO order -- like unposting and then reposting books.  Layne knows this and is fine with it, but I didn't want anyone to accidentally lose his or her place in line. :-)

The bookshelf "vacation hold" keeps your place in line, if that's important to you.

Really? Why would that happen?

"Books only accepted if accompanied by a box of chocolates, at least 2 pounds in weight, creams and carmels only, no nuts".

I would probably accept that one.  It would be easier to determine than some of the others I've had lately.  ;-) 

Layne said "With the new bookshelf changes, you can just change all you posted books to a hold and then you'll still get your wishlist books."

But if you do that, when you want to make your books available again don't you have to go back and pick out the books which really are on what is now being called hold and those that are actually posted and change the status for the latter?  If you have a large bookshelf and/or have had a lot of transactions, that would be extremely tedious and time-consuming.  Or, am I missing something here?  I find the new bookshelf arrangement both confusing and not very useful.

You're right Kaele - that would indeed be a drag.  (Though at least you would be dealing with the drag at the right time - ie, not when you're under whatever stress made you put your books on hold in the first place.) So it's not that great a solution after all.

I don't let it put my TBR books that I've received from PBS onto my bookshelf.  This way I don't have them cluttering up my shelf.  It also forces me to take another look at the book again before I post it.  I'm wondering if the amount of unpostable books being sent will increase now.  Because people will just take it off hold and not double check the book.