How can I submit Proof of Disability remotely?

After you sign up for a Bookshare Individual Membership, regardless of your age, you’ll need to provide a Proof of Disability form signed by a Qualifying Professional, someone with experience in your area of disability. Typically, we would ask the Qualifying Professional to sign the completed form and email a scanned copy or mail the hard copy. However, we understand it may not be possible for folks to print and sign the form. As a result, we are offering a workaround for completing the Proof of Disability process:

We are allowing the Qualifying Professional to “sign” the completed form by sending it to us by email along with the wording and information we have outlined below.

  1. Download a copy of the Proof of Disability form from your Bookshare account. It is highlighted on your My Bookshare page after you login.
  2. Either you or the Qualifying Professional needs to fill out all of the required fields on your Proof of Disability form digitally and save the electronic file.
  3. IMPORTANT – Please ask the Qualifying Professional to email that completed digital form to POD@bookshare.org and include the following in their email:

Please ask the Competent Authority to include this language in the body of their email:

I attest, under penalty of perjury, that the applicant has a visual, perceptual, learning, reading, or other physical disability that limits their ability to effectively use standard print and that I have the professional qualifications to make such a determination and/or have legal access through my organization to existing written documentation attesting to this fact.

Qualifying Professional Name:

Qualifying Professional Title:

Please be sure that the completed Proof of Disability form is included as an attachment to the email, even though it will not be signed. This provides the necessary proof to our auditors that the person sending the email was aware of what they were signing.

Once we receive the email with these items, we will approve your account as quickly as possible so that you can begin accessing Bookshare books.