Unless more student support arises in favor of the Memorial Union’s Browsing Library and Chapel, they will be eliminated.

Government of the Student Body President Dan Mangan said the Browsing Library and Chapel may be eliminated to make room for more student office space.

Mangan said the chapel will “almost certainly be removed” and there are no plans to relocate it. The Browsing Library, however, is in limbo until student opinion can be evaluated.

“We are definitely going to gut the area around the Browsing Library,” said Patrick Murray-John, president of the Student Union Board. “The current office spaces will be rebuilt and more will be constructed.”

The offices will be for the Veishea committee, GSB, SUB and other student organizations needing office space.

“We’d like to have everything in one area, rather than having these offices scattered all around the building,” Mangan said.

Although the office construction plans are firm, the fate of the Browsing Library is uncertain.

“There are two options for the Browsing Library right now,” Mangan said. “And we really need students to speak up and tell us which one they prefer. This is the student union and students should make the decisions.”

The first option, Mangan said, is to keep the Browsing Library on the ground floor and “just move it back farther against the north wall of the Union.”

The second option is to relocate it to the first floor of the Union in an unused study lounge. Murray-John said this option would increase the size of the library.

“The flip side to this option is that it would tamper with the architect’s original plan for the Union,” Mangan said. The architect who designed the Memorial Union intended for Gold Star Hall to be located directly above the Browsing Library and the Chapel.

Gold Star Hall is a war memorial. Mangan said, “The architect arranged the rooms on the premise that without a foundation in religion and knowledge, nobody would go off to war and give their lives.”

Students are encouraged to voice their opinions by filling out a survey available in the Browsing Library.

“Right now, most of the poll responses I’ve looked at have been in favor of keeping the library where it is,” Murray-John said. “But I’d like to get more people to stop in and fill out the questionnaire.”

Murray-John said the final will come in two to three weeks and that construction would begin this summer.

Other Union renovations include reconfiguring the food court area on the ground floor to make it more attractive and more spacious.

“There will be franchise-type restaurants opening in the Union,” Mangan said.

Restaurants such as Panda Express, Taco John’s and Subway will set up shop in the food service area. The Onion, a small convenience store, may be moved to a different part of the building, but current construction plans still have it on the ground floor.

Construction for the new food service area is expected to begin in November and finish over winter break, Mangan said.

Renovating the Union is a “project that has been worked on for the last four years,” Murray-John said. “There are some parts of the Union that haven’t been changed since the 1920s. It needs some updating.”