Good news for anyone who remembers The Argotist Online that I used to run. The website's archived versions have now been restored to the UK Web Archive, following the British Library's cyberattack in 2023.
The UK Web Archive, maintained by the British Library, had been preserving the Argotist since 2008, with captures made every six months. Unfortunately, following the cyberattack, these archived versions disappeared from public view. For a while, it looked as though this important record of the website's history might have been lost.
Thankfully, that hasn't been the case. The archive is now back online, and I'm delighted to see that 54 archived captures of The Argotist Online, dating from 2008 to 2022, are once again accessible.
These captures provide an opportunity to revisit the website as it developed over the years, including its changing design, the poetry, criticism, interviews and other material it published.
To find the Argotist archive, go to:
Type the following into the search box:
argotistonline.co.uk
This will take you to calendars dating from 2008 to 2022. Choose a year and click on one of that year's highlighted dates in the calendar. This will take you to the site as it appeared at that time.
The Argotist Online was a project I worked on for 18 years, and it's great to know that so much of its history has been preserved for former contributors, readers and anyone interested in its place in online poetry publishing.
