Tadween recently interviewed David Hirsch, librarian for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angles, about the Tahrir Documents, a project which collected and translated material from the protests at Tahrir Square in Cairo. This interview is part of Tadween’s new campaign to highlight the role of universities in knowledge production and preservation.

Tadween Publishing brings you the latest news and analysis from the publishing and academic worlds that relate to pedagogy and knowledge production.

By Ursula Lindsey

CAIRO–In an oft-cited reference, the UN-sponsored Arab Human Development Report painted a bleak picture in 2003 of the Arab cultural and academic landscape here. It described translation in Arab countries as “chaotic and static” and noted that  “the aggregate total of translated books [into Arabic] from the Al-Ma’moon era to the present day amounts to 10,000 books – equivalent to what Spain translates in a single year.”