WP Newbie Question regarding subscribers

you can password protect a page
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXGZjJqm9LU

or you could just install a new instance of wordpress in a folder like
/members
and password protect the whole blog and set it not to be indexed by search engines
link to it from original blog
https://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/angsumans-authenticated-wordpress-plugin-password-protection-for-your-wordpress-blog/

others may have better ideas

You might want to check out the Members plugin. It gives you several options as far as hiding specific pages and content from unapproved members:
https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/members

Nezmin, what did you use to house the directory? a plugin? which one?

dmigel,
I used the “Connections” plugin.