The John and John Adams Postcard Collection documents over 100 years of history and communication. The collection includes almost 1000 postcards of San Diego County, over 4000 from California and over 200,000 cards from all over the world. The current scanned collection is just a fraction of the total collection which will continue to grow in SDSU Unbound.

After his retirement as Chairman of Humanities in 1968, Adams became part-time university archivist for San Diego State College. John and his wife Jane donated generously to the university. Their donations consisted of books, postcards, ephemera, and manuscripts.