The Anatomy of a Journal: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How

Abstract

Those working in the library and information sector are familiar with journals as readers, authors, reviewers, trainers and collection managers. In 2025, the Irish Health Sciences Libraries Group committee took the next step and became a publisher. The basic process will be familiar to anyone who has developed a new service as it involved translating ideas into practical goals, policies, workflows and other necessary tasks to create a useful, reputable product. In this article we reveal why we embarked on this project, how we dealt with challenges, and what knowledge, skills and resources were needed to fulfil our aim of creating a free forum to share our collective professional knowledge. We hope that the lessons learned along the way will be of interest to those producing similar products or services.