With the South End’s library facing a three-year timeline for reopening, residents are dismayed by the lack of temporary community services being offered by the Boston Public Library (BPL).

On September 1 the BPL announced that it will start providing programming at Rutland Street’s United South End Settlements facility each Thursday from 10am to 12:30pm starting on October 5.

“That’s just not going to cut it,” said Yvette Jarreau, president of the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL).

FOSEL was founded in 2007 by Marleen Nienhuis, a longtime South End resident who was concerned about the state of the library and advocated for consistent improvements to the building and its neighboring park. Jarreau said that the BPL needs to “provide some reasonable temporary services for the neighborhood in this long period we’re facing.”

This once-a-week service will provide children’s story hour but leave the community without other library resources such as computer access with WIFI, tax preparation assistance, homework help, workforce development services, technical help and programs to teach English to speakers of other languages.

In addition to calling for more programming, Jarreau said these services should be available from 10am to 2pm and from 3 to 6pm on at least three or four days each week.

“Let’s not leave people in the community with nothing or next to nothing,” she said.

FOSEL reached out to multiple BPL staff members about expanding temporary services and hours, but Jarreau said that the only response was an acknowledgement of the requests.

The BPL was invited to interview for this article but declined to comment after multiple attempts to reach their office.

FOSEL founder Nienhuis said a working group was established in November 2022 to discuss temporary service options, but the BPL has since rejected many of the group’s proposals.

The group continues to meet every one or two months and includes FOSEL members, representatives from South End neighborhood associations, elected officials such as State Representative John Moran, and BPL staff. “BPL should be held accountable to mitigate this injury to the neighborhood,” said Nienhuis regarding the recent announcement.

This comes after the South End’s BPL branch endured a basement flood in April 2022 and then another flood in February 2023, which filled the basement and part of the first floor.

“Out of the last four years, we’ve been closed about three,” said Jarreau, highlighting necessary closures for both COVID in 2020 and for interior renovations that were completed in 2019.

With the South End branch facing at least another three years with no operational library, Nienhuis asked, “Why doesn’t the BPL put more resources toward temporary services?”

While the BPL is currently investing in completing five capital projects for library branch renovations, she argues that these efforts should be scaled back to focus more on communities in need of temporary services, such as the South End.

“We’re trying to get the BPL to change their strategy,” said Jarreau.

The current library reopening schedule includes one year for design and another two years for construction, said Nienhuis.

The estimated price tag for reopening the project is $20 million, a placeholder number that will be adjusted once it’s decided if parts of the current building will be kept or if it will be torn down and replaced from scratch.