The Smithsonian Institution has been especially busy managing crises recently, with workers walking out and the ongoing turmoil at the Hirshhorn Museum, but the megalith institution may be facing even bigger problems. According to the Washington Post, storage and maintenance of the collections — which contain over 130 million items ranging from paintings, furniture, and costumes to, say, whale skeletons (see above) — has become a bit of a challenge.

From damaged storage containers to poorly organized archives, historical treasures and masterpieces are in jeopardy of being lost to the ages. The National Museum of American History was unable to locate 10 percent of their pieces in its collection during a recent audit, and it isn’t alone.

“Sequestration is an issue for the Smithsonian,” Scott Miller, deputy undersecretary of the institution said in a recent hearing. “Our budget is stretched, and this could inadvertently impact the progress we have made.”

Concerns over the management of the inventory and the conditions of the facilities themselves require budgetary resources beyond the roughly $800 million that has been poured into them since 2006. For now the lion’s share of resources seems to be devoted to digitizing the collection, which, according to Smithsonian secretary Wayne Clough, “would take more than half a century.”