Do Serbian scientists need a blog of their own?

Not that it costs anything to have one...

Yet, the Konsortium of science libraries in Serbia is seriously contemplating shutting down their KOBSON blog, an invaluable tool in science communication in the region.

Danica, who the regular readers of this blog are quite familiar with as she is the Number One Champion for Open Science and Web 2.0 science in Serbia, has put a lot of effort into building the online infrastructure for Serbian scientific communication, including the KOBSON blog and the KOBSON wiki, as well as teaching and preaching to the local scientific community about the importance of catching up with the world after a decade of isolation and fully embracing the modern communication tools. She was also involved in setting up the Serbian Citation Index, from which I mined a paper that I used to demonstrate how important Open Access is to scientists in developing countries.

There is not much more that Danica alone can do in the present situation to save the KOBSON blog, but perhaps YOU all can help. How? Let's demonstrate the power of Science 2.0 by direct example! Go to the KOBSON blog and explain the importance of such a tool in the comments of this post. Even better, if you are fluent in one or another variant of the Serbo-Croatian language, post a comment on the Serbian version of the post. Then, post a link and this plea to your own blog as well and ask your readers to do the same.

Update: On the front page of the KOBSON home (not blog) there is "contact" information and an e-mail address:

nainfo@nbs.bg.ac.yu

Be polite and explain why hosting (and pointing to) a blog is essential for 21st century science.

The problem is not just saving the blog where it is on Wordpress, but also moving it onto the Library server, or at least linking to it from the homepage so people see it and use it more. Right now, only people "in the know" use it which severely limits its usefulness.

You should also join the 'Fight for Science Blogs' Cause on Facebook and invite all your friends to join it as well (the 'causes' function is malfunctioning on Facebook right now, so try later if you cannot sign up right now).