Finding His Way

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Soldiers hooked on reading worried about their postwar access to paperbacks once their Armed Services Editions supply ended upon discharge. However, the paperback industry was swiftly growing by war’s end, and there was no shortage of inexpensive paperbacks to buy. At Omnibook, Trautman experimented with mailing free magazines to rural areas that lacked libraries, including his hometown, and developed a market in postwar Europe, which had a dearth of new books due to wartime censorship and ongoing paper rationing. In late 1945, Trautman learned that he was being awarded the Legion of Merit for his Army book work. Trautman applied to the Army Reserves and gave talks at libraries about providing good library service to veterans. After giving a lecture to the School of Library Service at Columbia University, Trautman was offered a professorship and accepted.</jats:p>