The timeline below presents important events and a selection of the organizations we have worked with over the years. We are very thankful for this fantastic journey. The challenging projects in our past and present makes it possible for our competence and experience to continue to grow. Today, our knowledge base spans over strategy, processes, organization, architecture as well as regulations within archives and digital preservation
The company's history begins at a time when many companies in the IT sector were experiencing difficulties. The founders of the company, Björn and Henrik, carried with them many years of experience from business-critical environments where information was an important asset. One of the first assignment ES Solutions conducted was a project for the National Archives and their storage of electronic records. We are very grateful to the National Archives for giving us the opportunity and trust in providing our digital preservation solution.
Another important event in the company's history was the assignment to assist the Swedish Tax Agency with advice on digital preservation, procurement support and quality assurance of the implementation of digital preservation systems. At the same time, assignments were carried out at the Swedish Radio, Sweden's Television, the National Archives, the Swedish National Audio and Video Archive (SLBA) and the Swedish Royal Library.
ESS conducted a feasibility study on e-archives for Eskilstuna City Archives. The result was delivered to the association “Sambruk” where it formed parts of projects which later were used as a basis for the SKL / SKI, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, agreement e-archive 2013. .
A service and support commitment was initiated with the Swedish National Archives since the digital preservation platform was identified as business critical.
ESS got assigned by the Swedish National Archives to lead the feasibility study "e-arkiv och e-diarium". A study The National Archives had been commissioned by the eGovernment Delegation to implement. The preliminary study was ongoing for about 1 year and a number of state authorities, municipalities and county councils participated. The study recommended continued work with common specifications (FGS) for efficient exchange of information between source systems and digital preservation systems.
ES Solutions participated in several sub-projects within the EU-project eARD, including tests of common specifications, “FGS”. The Swedish Association for Local Authorities and Regions started collaborating with the project eArd and carried out an tender supplier test for the framework agreement “e-archive 2013”. ES Solutions contributed to the tests and evaluated the suppliers test results. At the start of project eARD, ESS also took part in developing a RFI including a Requirement Specification with related guidance documents, delivery instructions and checklists for digital preservation.
The National Archives of Norway (NAN) implemented ESSArch in 2010-2011 and extended the set of requirements to also include functionality for Producers to collect any content from any business systems, package it and transfer the packages to the Archival organizations. The functionality for ingestion into the Digital Preservation Repository (DPR) was also evolved as well as long-term generation management for preserved information and objects.
Installation of ESSARch at Kommunearkivinstitusjonenes Digitale RessursSenter, a Municipal archive institutions Digital Resource Center, and Bergen City Archives
The Norwegian National Archives ask ES Solutions to participate in the EU project E-ARK. It is a request that involves ESS contributing with both competence and the product ESSArch which is intended to be a reference implementation of a digital preservation system. The goal of the project and subsequent results was to develop so-called "Pan-European" specifications for SIP, AIP, DIP and a few information type specifications. Alongside these results, useful tools based on open source philosophy is developed as well as a tools / methods for maturity evaluation from a digital preservation perspective. The project has been concluded with an unusual rating for the EU as “Excellent”, the highest rating possible!
ESSArch is installed at Sydarkivera, a Municipal Association with 26 member municipalities as of 2019. Sydarkivera has the task of handling advice and support for archives and information management, digital archive deposits and a joint digital preservation system for their members.
The EU project EARK is followed by project EARK4ALL where further work was done with specifications and software components. EARK4ALL was completed last May 2019 and the next 2-year EU project EARK3 starts at the end of 2019 starts at the end of 2019
ESSArch is installed at Church of Sweden
EARK3 starts