The Douglas Kent Hall Papers document approximately fifty years of the creator's life and contain materials relating to the two major aspects of his work: creative writing and photography. The collection includes manuscripts, notes, and research files as well as black-and-white negatives, contact sheets, color transparencies and prints for almost all of Hall's published and unpublished writings and photography projects. Audio and visual materials are included in a number of magnetic and optical formats (cassette tapes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and one 45rpm vinyl record). There is also handwritten and typed correspondence relating to those projects, and more general correspondence ranging from personal letters to business dealings with galleries. Unassociated and contextually ambiguous materials are also included.

A great majority of Hall's creative writing is present, consisting of books, plays, articles, essays, screenplays and teleplays, poetry, and short stories from his time as a student up until his death. There are drafts of major publications including his first novel On the Way to the Sky (1972) and Let 'Er Buck (1973), as well as the interviews and research behind the documentary The Great American Cowboy. A majority of the series consists of unpublished drafts and related materials that are usually thematically related to other writings and photography projects that Hall was developing concurrently. Other creative writings include a number of autobiographical short stories, freelance articles and reviews, a large amount of unpublished poetry, and many unproduced screenplays.

The creative bulk of the collection consists of at least 96,000 unique images in the form of black-and-white negatives, contact sheets, color transparencies, and prints spanning Hall's forty years of photography. Major subjects include rock and roll stars from the 1960s and early 1970s (including Jimi Hendrix and The Who), the American southwest (including rodeos, mission churches, border residents, and Native dances), poets and artists (including Mark Strand, Allen Ginsberg, W. S. Merwin) and photographic studies of subcultures including bodybuilding (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno), prison life, drag racing, dance, and cowboy lifestyles. Locations photographed include the U.S.-Mexico border, the American West, New Mexico, New York City, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia. Since a number of these projects were developed as publications, the photographs are accompanied by manuscripts, notes, research files, and correspondence related to their production.

The collection is organized into four major series with additional subdivisions.