University students, staff and administrators give a new remodeling project mixed reviews, even as newly constructed walls are transforming a place students used to study and check e-mail into a yet-unnamed art gallery.

Junior biology major Randy Story was looking at the remodeling project last weekend and wondered why the university needs another art gallery.

“I?m all for culture, but I?ve got to be honest, I don?t go into the art exhibits we already have. Is this for students, or is it just something that a bunch of ?artsy-fartsy? types want?” he said.

Robert Jones, vice president of University Affairs said when the remodeling project is complete the space will house a new art gallery scheduled to open April 4 coinciding with the 10th Annual CSUS Festival of the Arts.

“It?s good. It?s a good thing,” Jones said of the future gallery, which will feature rotating art collections.

But not everyone is thrilled with the plan.

Where sunlight used to filter through the windows on the ground floor of the library behind the checkout desk, partially finished walls are up and according to librarian Linda Goff, some of the best library space is being lost.

“It?s the only attractive place in the library, in my opinion,” Goff said.Goff said she?s not against a new gallery on campus, but is concerned that the nearly 4000 square-foot gallery and office space remodel is not in the best interest of students.

“I think that an art collection is good for campus,” she said. “A library is not an art gallery.”

The area was previously used for the express email stations, as a place to study and interlibrary loan office.

The loan office remains on the main floor until new space on the second floor is complete. Once it is moved upstairs, the area it occupies now will become study space.

The email stations were popular with students Goff said. Now those eight computers sit unused on the second floor with taped on notes that read, “Email stations are temporarily out of order. They will be available in a couple of weeks.”

“No department likes to lose space,” Goff said.Robin Lovering manages project design and development for Sac State?s Facilities Management department, including the library remodel.

“Yes, there will be some space being lost,” but added that the library gallery is temporary until a building can be built for the Art department sometime in the future.

That could take some time if history is any measure. “We?ve had ?temporary? buildings around here for 25 years,” Lovering said.

The $90,000 remodel is funded through equal contributions of university money and private gifts. Facilities Management staff is doing the construction, working odd hours and weekends to complete the project before spring break.

Art professor Phil Hitchcock envisioned a new campus art venue more than five years ago. He and the Sac State art department will manage the new gallery.

“Its really there to bring it much closer to the student body and more accessible to the community at large,” Hitchcock said of the 3100 square foot gallery area.

Hitchcock refers to the gallery as the CSUS Library Gallery, but said it will be renamed when there is a major donor.

Plans call for the gallery to have museum lighting and security and a reading area and follows construction models similar to the Oakland museum or the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

The few Sac State students in the lobby study area didn?t know about the gallery going in.

The first exhibit will be a private collection of the “Society of Six,” a group of six Northern California painters using the Plein-Air technique.

“It?s a very important and valuable collection,” Hitchcock said.