The city of Cortez announced Monday it would close the Cortez Public Library and Recreation Center to help protect staff and residents from exposure to the coronavirus, effective immediately.

City parks will remain open, but bathrooms will be closed indefinitely.

Essential government functions will be unaffected, the city said in a news release. They include offices of administration, the Cortez Police Department and 911 dispatchers, water, airport, trash and recycling pickup and City Hall.

The policy will be evaluated on a weekly basis, the news release said.

The decision to close the library comes just days after it canceled all programs for three weeks and announced new hours. The library also has two digital services RBdigital and Overdrive, which have thousands of digital resources available, including, streaming video, ebooks, eaudiobooks and digital magazines. Both of these services can be used by library card holders and have apps available for Android, Windows, and iOS operating systems.

For more information, go to cityofcortez.com.