structural:expansion, information:extraction
Storage facilities

Most of the museum's collections of mammalian and dinosaur fossils remain hidden from public view and are kept in many repositories deep within the museum complex. The most significant storage facility among these is the ten-story Childs Frick Building, which started construction in 1969 and was completed in 1973. When the Frick Building was completed, the museum's collection of fossilized mammals and dinosaurs was the world's largest such collection, weighing 600 short tons (540 long tons; 540 t). The Frick Building's top three floors contain laboratories and offices.

Other areas of the museum contain repositories of life from the past. The Whale Bone Storage Room is a cavernous space in which powerful winches come down from the ceiling to move the giant fossil bones about. The museum attic upstairs includes even more storage facilities, such as the Elephant Room, while the tusk vault and boar vault are downstairs from the attic.