If you plan to be out of town (or away from email) for longer than a few days, you can use the Vacation/Hold feature to put your bookshelf on hold. This feature prevents incoming requests and "hides" any item on your Wish List that has not been set to auto-request, but it will not suspend active transactions (for books already requested by or from you). 

• Note: Using the Vacation Hold will not affect active (ongoing) requests in your account.

If you will be away for a longer time (longer than 2 or 3 weeks), it would be best if you turned auto-request OFF for your Wish List books - if you will be away from home for a while, it is not really fair to ask senders to send to you and wait a long time for their credits.  If you are away from your account for weeks while a book is en route to you, the system may mark it received in your absence so that the sender gets credit (see more details below*).

Please ensure that your incoming mail can be "held" for you in your absence. Requestors are responsible for providing dependable addresses to senders.

• If you are moving, you must arrange for your incoming Media Mail to be forwarded (this will not happen automatically, as it does for First-Class Mail).
• If you are simply to be away from home, and will be returning to the same address, you should speak with your PO about holding your mail.

Other Important Things to Consider

• If you WANT books to be auto-requested for you from your wish list while you are away, and you will be away longer than three weeks, we suggest one of two things:

1. use Requestor Conditions that explain this "I am away from home so the system will mark your book received 26 days after you mark it mailed. If you don't want to wait 26 days to get your credit, please decline this request"  (you can read about using Requestor Conditions in How to Use Requestor Conditions  OR
2. log in periodically while you are away and mark all incoming books received although you have not been home to mark them received.

It is not fair to ask senders to wait a very long time for credit, so if your planned absence will be longer than a month you must do one of the above: (1) put your Wish LIst on hold with NOTHING set to auto-request or (2) use Requestor Conditions as above or (3) log in periodically to mark the books received while you are away, even if you have not been home and even if you do not know if they have arrived.  (Yes, this means you may mark some books received that do not actually arrive, but this is fairer than asking senders to send to you in good faith and then wait an extremely long time for credit while you are away.)

• If you return from being away, and books were delivered in your absence
  • check your email inbox and your Transaction Archive (linked from your My Account page) to see if the books were declared lost in the Mail while you were away.
  • See I received a book that was 'lost in the mail' for instructions about how to mark a "lost" book received and give the sender credit.


• It is best NOT to request books too close to the date of your "hiatus"--in other words, that will not be likely to arrive before you leave your computer for a prolonged time, so that there are no issues about returned mail, or books marked received by the system in your absence.
• • If you DO request a book and then plan to leave home for a while it would be considerate to tell the sender that there will be a delay in your marking the book received.
    • You can contact the sender(s) of the book(s) using the PM button on the requests you submitted
    • This will prevent the sender(s) from worrying if the books are declared "lost" while you are away.
  • If books were marked received in your absence that were not actually delivered to you:
    • The sender(s) will have gotten credit(s) for sending the book(s) when they were marked received.
    • To contact the sender:
      • Go to your Transaction Archive page under My Account in the toolbar at the top of the site
      • Scroll down to see the completed transaction for the book in question on the Transaction Archive page
      • Click to send a message to this sender; type the message in and click Send.
        • If the sender does not respond to your message within a week, please let us know
      • The sender can give the credit back following the instructions in How do I give credits to other members? and read A book I sent has been called 'lost in the mail'! for information about tracking this unreceived book through USPS.
      • You can also do some "detective" work on your end--discuss this package with your postal carrier and local PO.  It may be at your local PO being held for your return.
  • Putting your account on hold for a prolonged period while books are en route to you (or using Auto-request on the Wish List to get Wish List books in your absence) does include a small amount of risk that books will be marked received by the system in your account that were not received.*

If you will be away from PBS for a very long or uncertain period of time, you can also always ask us to suspend your account.

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*If during your absence from home you will be away from a computer for a prolonged period of time, and will be unable to log into your account, there is a chance that books that are "en route" to you while you are away will be marked received by the system.  (Note: Using the Vacation Hold will not prevent this from happening; this mechanism is in place to protect the sender from requestors who order books and don't return to mark them received.  Setting a vacation hold does not guarantee that a member will return to the account, so the Vacation Hold does not prevent the system from processing active transactions normally.)

• If you have not logged in for a while and you have a book en route to you, you should receive an email from PBS asking you to log in to demonstrate that you are still an active member, and if possible, you should do this within the timeframe given in the email.


• If your account appears "inactive" to the PBS computer, a book that is en route to you will be marked received by the system on the 26th day (the 35th day if sender or requestor is outside the contiguous US) after it is marked mailed (it will not be declared Lost).

Related Links:

How the Vacation/Hold feature works
How does the Vacation Hold affect My Bookshelf?
How does the Vacation Hold affect My Wish List?
How does the Vacation Hold affect Box-O-Books?
How does the Vacation Hold affect PaperBackSwap emails?
How can I change my email or mailing address?
I have two residences with books in both places; how can I manage my PBS account?