San Francisco, Jun 22 (IANS): The San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) will reopen additional neighbourhood branches for limited indoor and front door pick-up service, the city's Mayor London Breed announced.

From Monday onwards, more branches were slated to open throughout the summer as staffing permits and as San Francisco continues to make progress on its recovery, the announcement said.

On May 3, SFPL reopened the Main Library and launched its "Browse and Bounce" program, which is also available at the Chinatown Branch Library and Mission Bay Branch Library, reports Xinhua news agency.

San Francisco will open four new Browse and Bounce locations this week.

"Our public library stepped up in more ways than one to help this city during this unprecedented time of need, but now it's time to start getting back to regular business," said Breed.

Although some staff is returning to their pre-pandemic roles with the gradual demobilisation of the city's Covid-19 response, staffing levels remain too low to fully reopen all branches due to a large number of vacancies.

At present, the Library's workforce is down by nearly a quarter, according to the announcement.

"We are doing the best with the personnel we have to fully reopen all of our neighbourhood libraries as expeditiously as possible," said City Librarian Michael Lambert.