The 2017 virtual issue of the Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ) is published to link to the 12th International Congress on Medical Librarianship and the 2017 EAHIL Workshop taking place in Dublin, Ireland on 12–16 June 2017. The conference title is Diversity in Practice: integrating, inspiring and innovative and it is exploring how health science librarianship, in all its diversity, is integrating, inspiring and innovating practice. These themes have been used to compile this virtual issue, which contains published articles selected from HILJ from the June 2014 issue through to September 2016. The virtual issue mirrors the format of a regular issue of HILJ, namely a review article, six original articles and our three regular features: ‘Dissertations into Practice’, ‘International Perspectives and Initiatives’ and ‘Teaching and Learning in Action’. All articles included in this virtual issue are available free online.