18 december 2008 - The De Hal building will be closed for nearly a fortnight as of Saturday 20 December in order to undergo thorough cleaning. The building is infested with too high a mold concentration. In order to enable students to study for the January exams, De Hal will be open for study again in the weekend of 3 and 4 January. This cleaning is step two in the procedure designed to tackle the problems. In the past few months the leakages of the building were remedied. The moisture problems involved were caused mainly by the mold growth. Leo Delescen, head of Public Services, emphasizes that the mold does not present a hazard to public health. The mold problem was discovered in the middle of this year. It had been clearly visible for a long time that De Hal has moisture problems on the top floor in particular, but when an employee began to experience complaints of the respiratory system, an agency was called in to investigate the concentrations of mold, Delescen explains. This agency established that concentrations of a certain mold are in fact too high, although these were probably not the source of the complaints developed by the employee.Due to the closure De Hal will be open five days shorter than had been planned. Normally De Hal would be open up to and including 24 December. As of 5 January the library in De Hal will be fully operational again. The Departmental libraries will continue to be open, until 16.00 hours on Wednesday 24 December. If desired, books from the collection of the central library may be handed in at other library locations.