The bulk of the collection centers on the documentary film Word Is Out: stories of some of our lives (1977), a ground-breaking exploration of the lives of 26 gay men and women. A small portion of the collection concerns The AIDS Show: artists involved with death and survival (1986), a production of Peter Adair and Rob Epstein's with Theatre Rhinoceros.

Peter Adair was a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker. He was born in Santa Monica, California in 1944. His father, John Adair, was an anthropologist who studied the Zuni and Navajo, and his mother, Casey, was a housewife who edited John's works and the New Mexico Quarterly, a literary journal. They gave Peter a film camera on his high school graduation and sparked a life-long interest in documentary filmmaking.

79 cubic foot boxes, 31 boxes of various sizes (max. 16-inches x 16-inches x 3-inches) (110.0 cubic feet)

Copyright interest in Word Is Out is held by The San Francisco Public Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.

The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours, with photographs available during Photo Desk hours. Significant portions of the original film and sound footage found in Series 3 were restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archives, and are still maintained there. These boxes are noted in the container list.