Expatriate Japanese Families as Unexpected Users of Public Libraries: A Case Study in a College Town Community in the United States

This study explores the use of local public libraries by expatriate Japanese families staying in a micro-urban, university-centered community in the United States, with a specific focus on their reading and information gathering practices. The data used for the study was collected through semi-structured interviews the authors conducted in 2013. The expatriate families in this study consist of those who temporarily live in the area with clear prospects of returning to Japan. All of the families the authors interviewed included a member who was either a corporate transferee (i.e. an employee of a transnational corporation assigned to work in a U.S. office) or a degree-seeking international student, and had concrete plans to move back to Japan after a few years of stay in the United States. Dali (2012) identifies “immigrant readership” as one area in the library and information science scholarship where more research and evidence-based discussions are desired. Reading and information gathering activities of short-term transnational residents of the United States, such as the Japanese families in this study, are similarly less well documented or understood. Furthermore, due to the transient nature of their stay, border-crossing families of corporate transferees and international students have traditionally been less visible as members of “local communities” while public libraries sought to reach out to diverse and diversifying bodies of local residents. “Trailing” family members of international workers and students have also been outside of the scope of the service of academic and research libraries. This study finds that despite not being seen as a potential patron group, the non-employee or non-student members of the expatriate families frequently used local public libraries. Highly used and desired items centered on audio-visual titles and children’s books, due largely to their limited ability to read in English, but they were enthusiastic users of the public libraries, who actively chose materials to borrow based on their mobility prospects and (self-)educational needs. In addition, the study finds that in spite of obvious benefits to border-crossing families, the adoption of e-books was extremely low. This was partly due to a mismatch between the families’ language preferences and local libraries’ digital lending collections, and partly due to limited circulation of e-books published in Japan outside of the Japanese market. Drawing on the new mobilities paradigm (Sheller and Urry 2006) that posits different population groups and material objects ride the flow of globalization at much different rates, the authors argue that public libraries in the 21st century face challenges of developing effective strategies to engage with patrons with different levels of social, physical and transnational mobilities, as well as differentially mobile materials. The authors also discuss possibilities of future, more full-scale studies, as well as possibilities of building partnerships with public libraries based on the findings.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/lib_present/1009/thumbnail.jp

Physical and functional interactions between STAT3 and Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus-encoded LANA

The Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV)-encoded latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) is known to modulate viral and cellular gene expression. We show that LANA directly associates with an IL-6 signal transducer, STAT3 and that LANA enhances the transcriptional activity of STAT3. Coimmunoprecipitation studies documented a physical interaction between LANA and STAT3 in transiently transfected 293T cells as well as the KSHV-infected primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) cell line. Furthermore, small-interfering RNA-mediated reduction of LANA expression decreased the STAT3-dependent transcription in KSHV-positive PEL cells, whereas overexpression of LANA enhanced STAT3 activity in KSHV-negative B lymphoma cells. These data demonstrate that LANA is a transcriptional co-activator of STAT3, and may have implications for the pathogenesis of KSHV-associated diseases

Physical and functional interactions between STAT3 and EBNA2

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-encoded latency protein EBNA2 is a nuclear transcriptional activator that is essential for EBV-induced cellular transformation. Here, we show that EBNA2 interacts with STAT3, a signal transducer for an interleukin-6 family cytokine, and enhances the transcriptional activity of STAT3 by influencing its DNA-binding activity. Furthermore, EBNA2 cooperatively acts on STAT3 activation with LMP1. These data demonstrate that EBNA2 acts as a transcriptional coactivator of STAT3

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus-encoded LANA associates with glucocorticoid receptor and enhances its transcriptional activities

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV)-encoded latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA), which interacts with cellular proteins, plays a central role in modification of viral and/or cellular gene expression. Here, we show that LANA associates with glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and that LANA enhances the transcriptional activity of GR. Co-immunoprecipitation revealed a physical interaction between LANA and GR in transiently transfected 293T and HeLa cells. In human B-lymphoma cells, LANA overexpression enhanced GR activity and cell growth suppression following glucocorticoid stimulation. Furthermore, confocal microscopy showed that activated GR was bound to LANA and accumulated in the nucleus, leading to an increase in binding of activated GR to the glucocorticoid response element of target genes. Taken together, KSHV-derived LANA acts as a transcriptional co-activator of GR. Our results might suggest a careful use of glucocorticoids in the treatment of patients with KSHV-related malignancies such as Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and multicentric Castleman disease. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved