We study a general type of series and relate special cases of it. to Stirling series, infinite series discussed by Choi and Hoffman, and also to special values of the Arakawa-Kaneko zeta function, studied before amongst others by Candelpergher and Coppo, and also by Young. We complement and generalize earlier results. Moreover, we survey properties of certain truncated multiple zeta and zeta star values, pointing out their relation to finite sums of harmonic numbers. We also discuss the duality result of Hoffman, relating binomial sums and truncated multiple zeta star values.