![\"black](\"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/metadc1633628_xl_UNTA_U0740-001-16-001_01.jpg\")
<\/a>Paul Kruse, c. 1968.<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n
\r\nKruse was quite accomplished in his career. After a few years as a reference librarian at the
\r\nLibrary of Congress, in 1945 he established the library of the United Nations National
\r\nConvention in San Francisco. He then was invited to become a bibliographer of the
\r\nEncyclopedia Britannica, and went on to write his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago
\r\nabout the history of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In addition to his many teaching positions over
\r\nhis career, he also served a term as president of the Special Libraries Association, was listed in
\r\nWho\u2019s Who in America, and was twice a Fulbright Scholar which took him to the University of
\r\nIran in Tehran and the University of Ceylon in Sri Lanka\u2019s capital, Colombo.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nOutside his robust career as a librarian, bibliographer, and professor, Kruse was passionate
\r\nabout the arts. A supporter of community theater, Kruse spent his free time at NTSU in the
\r\n1960s and 70s acting in several Denton Community Theater productions and was profiled in the
\r\nlocal paper for one of his roles.<\/p>\r\n
Letter from Paul Kruse to Margaret Mitchell, March 25, 1937.<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n Letter from Margaret Mitchell to Paul Kruse, p.1, July, 20, 1937.<\/p><\/div> Letter from Margaret Mitchell to Paul Kruse, p.2, July, 20, 1937.<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/p>\r\n Presently the correspondence between Paul Kruse and Margaret Mitchell, along with select photographs of Kruse, are available in the UNT Digital Library<\/a> and the Portal to Texas History<\/a>. The full Paul Kruse Papers will be digitized and available online soon.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNT Special Collections recently acquired the papers of Paul Kruse, a former professor of Library Science here when UNT was still called North Texas State University. Kruse was a professor, a Fulbright Scholar, an actor, a bibliographer, and a librarian. His papers give insight into his full life including his stint in North Texas and… Read more »<\/a>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,64,23,58,41],"tags":[22,360,97,63,358,359,28,357],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1930s","category-1940s","category-1950s","category-1960s","category-1970s","tag-faculty","tag-gone-with-the-wind","tag-hollywood","tag-library","tag-library-of-congress","tag-margaret-mitchell","tag-ntsu","tag-paul-kruse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1346,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions\/1346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\r\nKruse was also a collector and lover of books and often wrote to authors he admired.
\r\nSometimes those authors even responded. One of the writers that returned Kruse\u2019s letters was
\r\nMargaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind<\/em>. Two of her signed responses to Kruse are
\r\nincluded in his papers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/metadc1633649_xl_UNTA_U0740-001-01-006_01.jpg\")
<\/a>
\r\nKruse wrote to Mitchell in 1937 just before the film adaptation of Gone with the Wind<\/em> began
\r\nproduction. He expressed his affection for the book and asked Mitchell to sign his copy (noting
\r\nhis frustration that he could not obtain a first edition anywhere).<\/p>\r\n
\r\nIn one of her responses to Kruse, Mitchell gushes over librarians. She says Kruse\u2019s kind words
\r\nmean a lot to her coming from someone in his profession and that the librarians in her
\r\nhometown of Atlanta were crucially helpful during her research. Mitchell politely refused to sign
\r\nKruse\u2019s copy of Gone with the Wind<\/em> though. Because the demand for autographs rose in
\r\nproportion with the book\u2019s wild popularity, Mitchell vowed not to sign any more books after sales
\r\nreached a million copies, not even making an exception for a librarian.<\/p>\r\n\r\n![\"typed](\"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/metadc1633552_xl_UNTA_U0740-001-01-007_01.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/unt125\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/metadc1633552_xl_UNTA_U0740-001-01-007_03.jpg\")
<\/a>
\r\nWhile Kruse didn\u2019t get an autographed copy of Gone with the Wind<\/em>, it may be just as valuable to
\r\nhave received praise for librarians from such an acclaimed and beloved author.<\/p>\r\n