A selective collection of consumer periodicals central to the history of twentieth-century American design and photography is maintained as part of the Special Collections. These titles are recognized by historians for their notable art direction, photography, and/or illustration and complement materials in the archival collections described above. The periodicals collection includes long runs of the following key titles: Fortune, Harper's Bazaar, Life, Look, and Vogue. The focus of development for this collection is to complete the substantial existing runs of these titles rather than to add new titles. Shorter runs (1 to 5 years) provide additional material on designers represented in the archival collections (Junior Bazaar, Portfolio, Charm, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, for example) or document the work of other notable twentieth century American designers (Avant Garde, Eros, Audience, and Aspen, for example).

Full records for the periodicals are included in the library catalog. They are assigned the RARE locator and Library of Congress classification numbers based on their content.