All you need to do to register for our service is:
1) Qualify under one of the following:
a. Legally Blind – persons whose visual acuity, as determined by a competent authority (see 2d), is 20/200 or less in the better eye with correcting glasses, or whose widest diameter of visual field subtends an angular distance no greater than 20 degrees
b. Visually Disabled – persons who need aids stronger than regular reading glasses for reading standard printed materials (i.e. macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, etc)
c. Physically Disabled – persons unable to read or unable to use standard printed materials as a result of physical limitations (i.e. muscular sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s, paraplegia, traumatic brain injury, etc)
d. Deaf-Blindness
e. Reading Disabled – persons having a reading disability (i.e. neurological dyslexia) resulting from an organic dysfunction and of sufficient severity to prevent them from reading standard printed materials in a normal manner
2) Fill out one of our applications. Our application is the only paperwork we require in order to register a new user of our services. We do notrequire any additional notes or letters from doctors listing a specific diagnosis, proofs of legal blindness from the Oregon Commission for the Blind, or any other additional paperwork. Keeping the paperwork down helps keep your private information private.
a. Page one of the application just asks for the new user’s name, mailing address (so we know where to mail the books to), and their phone number (so we can contact you if there is a problem). If need be, we gladly mail books to addresses other than a user’s residence if friends or family members prefer to handle mail for the user.
b. Page two asks what types of books the new user would like to receive. Feel free to mark as many or as few subject preferences as you want, and please use the margins or the space provided below the subject list to indicate any special interests or sub-genre preferences. Just know that the more areas of interest marked, the broader and more general the pool of books our computer system has to choose from to send you.
c. Page three asks if the new user would be interested in any of the additional services or accessories we provide. These services and accessories are in addition to our core service of mailing books to you, and all are free, though for some there are stipulations regarding who is eligible to receive them (especially in the case of some of our accessories). Click here to view an online version of the application insert describing our additional services that usually comes with copies of the application we mail to interested people.
d. Page four is the Certification of Eligibility page. Here you will need to have a doctor of medicine, doctor of osteopathy, ophthalmologist, optometrist, professional librarian (MLS or MLIS), nurse, therapist, or other professional staff of a hospital, institution, or social welfare agency sign the application certifyingyour eligibility for the program. NOTE: in the case of Reading Disabled, the application MUST and CAN ONLY be signed by a doctor of medicine (MD) or a doctor of osteopathy (DO). Reading Disabilities must be medically diagnosed.
3) Mail the completed application back to us. We need to original application with the original signature on it. According to the policies of the National Library Service (a division of the Library of Congress and our parent federal agency) we cannot accept faxes, scans, or photocopies at this time. Our return address is on page one of the application. Once we receive the application back, we will make a confirmation call to verify information, and then the new user’s account is usually set up within 1-2 business days. A new user’s player and first couple of books go out the next business day following the creation of their new account. There are instances were the process can take longer (especially around holidays and state office closure days), but we endeavor to meet this standard as often as possible.