In honor of Women's History Month, the Library is taking a look back at some of the remarkable women who changed The New York Public Library—and the field of librarianship—forever with our new series, Foreword: Women Who Built NYPL. Each week this March, we will be sharing reflections from our current staff on how the impact of these trailblazing figures from the Library's 125-year history are still felt today. 

About Carolyn Ulrich

Carolyn Ulrich was chief of the New York Public Library’s Periodicals Division and created the field’s go to resource, still in use by librarians today. She started her NYPL career in the branches and reorganized the work in Central Circulation from 1920 to 1921 before transferring to the Reference Department. In 1932, she published Periodicals Directory: A Classified Guide to a Selected List of Current Periodicals Foreign and Domestic, which was the seed of what later became Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, an essential resource on more than 300,000 popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals.

Carolyn Ulrich’s Legacy

Reflection by Shannon Keller, Helen Bernstein Librarian for Periodicals and Journals 

There is a saying that the most efficient way to work is to use the right tool to do the right job. An artist has a paintbrush, a carpenter their hammer, a writer has their pen—and a periodicals librarian has Ulrich’s Periodical Directory. It is a testament to the essential nature of Carolyn Ulrich’s periodical directory, first published in 1932, that librarians continue to use it today for all manner of tasks. I rarely go a day without referencing Ulrich’s. 

Most recently, I used the directory to track title changes over the lives of several storied periodicals. Did you know that The Atlantic has changed titles four times? Mostly back and forth between The Atlantic and The Atlantic Monthly, depending upon its change in yearly publication frequency (which, by the way, is something else you can look up in Ulrich’s. The Atlantic is currently published ten times a year). Title changes can be significant. Town & Country was Home Journal for 55 years of its publication history, so knowing the correct title in a periodical’s history allows me to help researchers accurately source a citation and request the correct volume from the Library’s collection. 

This type of work as a periodicals librarian may seem tedious, but I take joy in maneuvering through the complexity, especially when it results in a researcher finding the long-lost article or issue that unlocks the door to their research.

This is part of the Foreword: Women Who Built NYPL series. Find out how the Library is celebrating Women's History Month with recommended reading, events and programs, and more.