Decision makers at the Peter White Public Library in the city of Marquette deserve positive recognition for taking the safe route to reopening the facility.

As announced in a Mining Journal front page story late last week, the library board previously approved a phased-in series of steps that will make services and access available to the public over time.

The Journal story noted that PWPL plans to have staff onsite beginning June 1 to conduct staff training and prepare for reinstalling some onsite services, then opening its doors June 8.

“This will change if there are other executive orders that address libraries. We are working closely with the Library of Michigan and the Michigan Library Association to interpret the executive orders, and how they impact the PWPL,” PWPL Director Andrea Ingmire said for the story. “So far, it looks like opening curbside services on June 8 is a reasonable timeline… If we are able to start curbside June 8 — the hours that week will be quite limited, giving us enough time to work out all the kinks in our new services.”

And then from June 8-13, PWPL will offer curbside pickup services from noon to 4 p.m. Starting June 15, hours will run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

This schedule will be put in place until the library is able to fully open to the public, Ingmire said for the Journal story.

“Our staff is very concerned about the safety of our community. We’ve been talking, since March, about how we can safely re-open and continue to provide the services that our community needs from us,” she said. “It’s all so complicated, but I do know that we have a lot of great minds working on this, and we will do our very best to provide services in a safe manner.”

We couldn’t agree more. There is no immediate rush to reopen the library. Why not do it in a measured way over time?

We think PWPL could serve as an example to other entities which are in “reopen at any cost” mode.