The 1930s were hard times on the University of Nebraska campus, and the museum was left lacking: in funds, in staff, and in space. Following some very generous donations by Mr. Frick, the museum was able to fund several expeditions to northwestern Nebraska to collect fossil specimens. Finding funding for these expeditions through the university would have been nigh impossible at the time. The expeditions were very successful, and resulted in many new collections and specimens for the museum.

However, following the death of one of the museum's most devoted workers, the university did not have money to hire another on at the same salary, and instead split half of the amount between 3 upper class students to keep costs down. No salary increases of any kind were permitted for employees, and Barbour took some of more minor expenses out of his own pocket to maintain the museum. Again, Mr. Frick's donations kept Morrill Hall floating.

Still, the museum continued to draw crowds of both tourists and locals. The rural community surrounding Lincoln found the museum to be a great amusement, actually forcing the museum staff to remain open over weekends during the summer because of the public demand. The museum ran with a skeleton staff, with a lone security guard, but no thefts were attempted. The increased attendance of pupils from the School of the Blind led Barbour to begin work on "touch cases", so that the students could touch and feel artifacts when they visited. Morrill Hall kept some of the cases, but also made use of duplicates or discolored specimens by allowing the school to keep them for educational purposes. This was one of the first instances of interactive learning at Morrill Hall.