One take-away from last week’s Government of the Student Body Senate meeting — their final meeting before classes resume in August — was that, despite much support for replacing the chairs in the Parks Library lobby, students are unwilling to pay the cost that goes with it.

That, at least, is the testimony of two surveys conducted on the chair replacement issue and of senators who went out and spoke to their constituents. It is also the testimony of the Senate’s 1-24 vote against the bill to give the Library first $10,894.44 and, after the bill was amended, $5447.22 to replace the lobby chairs.

The results of those two surveys show that 59 and 60.2 percent of students, respectively, support replacing the chairs through the use of GSB funds.

Bear in mind that the original plan would cost each student less than 50 cents.

The simple fact, we believe, is this: Students have a stake in how their library — a great common space available to all members of the ISU community, past, present and future — appears and the facilities available in it. With so much emphasis in today’s world on improving technological access and facilities, we worry that the actual, tangible spaces among us will be forgotten.

They cannot be. As we update other facilities — constructing buildings such as Troxel Hall, the addition to State Gym, ensuring that all classrooms have LCD projectors, screens, sound and video systems, and renovating buildings such as the Library — we cannot leave other aspects of our student areas to fall behind.

The Library is as much a part of student life as is the Memorial Union. It is where we go study, research, congregate and meet. Walking up to it, we pass through the Free Speech Zone on campus and can reasonably expect to see or hear a student or group promoting its message. Once we walk inside, we see what?

Upon entry, the Library hardly looks like a place students should want to assemble. We have a first-rate collection and staff; we should also have first-rate furniture. As students, it is our responsibility to fund what areas both affect them and need funding.

One of the hang-ups in the GSB debate on the Library chairs was the funding mechanism. The senators abided by the idea that student activity fees should fund student activities. Granted, sitting in the Library lobby is not much of an activity. Summer is coming, however, and with it the time to figure out how to make this important project a reality. The devil, after all, is in the details.