Sebastian Rahtz Explained

Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz
Birth Date:	13 February 1955
Birth Place:	Bristol, England
Death Place:	Oxford, England
Resting Place:	Oxford, England
Other Names:	Stormageddon Rahtz
Nationality:	British
Workplaces:	University of Exeter, University of Southampton, University of Oxford
Alma Mater:	Institute of Archaeology, University of LondonUniversity of Oxford
Thesis Title:	Funerary epitaphs and iconography : an analysis of the Protestant Cemetery, Rome
Thesis Url:	http://ucl-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/UCL_VU1:LSCOP_UCL_LMS_DS:UCL_LMS_DS000583865
Thesis Year:	1974
Known For:	TeX, Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
Spouse:	Leonor Barroca
Children:	2

Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (13 February 1955 – 15 March 2016) (SPQR) was a British digital humanities information professional.

Life

Born in 1955 to Somerset-focused archaeologist Philip Rahtz, Sebastian trained in archaeology, before delving into the computing realm via Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) in 1982.^[1]

He was a long-term contributor to several communities in the broader digital humanities, including LGPN, TeX,^{[2] [3]} computer methods in archaeology,^[4] and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI).^[5] Sebastian's legacy also includes the vital contributions which he made to building and maintaining much of the TEI's technical Infrastructure and related software such as their XSLT stylesheets and web-based document conversion engine OxGarage,^[6] CLAROS,^[7] the Oxford Text Archive,^[8] Text Creation Partnership^[9] and OSS Watch.^[10]

From 1999 to 2015 he worked at Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS) which in August 2012 merged with two other departments to become IT Services.^[11] He joined the department in 1999 from Elsevier, having previously been a lecturer in Humanities Computing at the University of Southampton. He became Head of the Information and Support Group in OUCS, and then joint Director (for Research) of the Academic IT Group in 2010, and a member of the senior management team. In 2014, he was appointed Chief Data Architect.^[12] He took medical retirement from IT Services in the late summer of 2015.

He died in 2016, from brain cancer.^[13]

Selected works

• Kicking and screaming: Challenges and advantages of bringing TCP texts into line with Text Encoding Initiative. J. Cummings and S. Rahtz, in Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, "Revolutionizing Early Modern Studies"? The Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, (2012). Retrieved from http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f9667884-220b-4ec9-bb2f-c79044302399
  • The LaTeX Web Companion: Integrating TeX, HTML, and XML. M. Goossens, S. P. Q. Rahtz, and S. Rahtz, with E. Gurari, R. Moore, and R. Sutor. Addison-Wesley Guide to LaTeX. H. Kopka, P. W. Daly, and S. P. Q. Rahtz. Addison-Wesley
• The LaTeX companion. F. Mittelbach, M. Goossens, J. Braams, D. Carlisle, and C. Rowley. Addison-Wesley
• LaTeX: Einführung. H. Kopka and S. Rahtz. Addison-Wesley
• The LaTeX Graphics Companion: Illustrating Documents with TeX and Postscript (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting). M. Goossens, F. Mittelbach, S. Rahtz. D. Roegel, and H. Voss. Addison-Wesley
• A style option for rotated objects in LaTeX (1992), 156-180. S. Rahtz and L. Barroca.
• Archaeology and the Information Age: A global perspective (1992), P. Reilly and S. Rahtz (eds.), One World Archaeology. Routledge.

Impact

In September 2016, Oxford University ran a whole-day event celebrating his life, with speakers talking about his projects.^[14] Many of the talks are available as podcasts.^[15]

Further reading

• Sebastian Rahtz (1955–2016): A brief memoir by Lou Burnard
• R.I.P. — S.P.Q.R Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (13.2.1955–15.3.2016) by Frank Mittelbach and Joan Richmond

Notes and References

1. Web site: Homepage, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, University of Oxford . Lgpn.ox.ac.uk . 2016-03-23.
2. Web site: Sebastian Rahtz - Interview - TeX Users Group . Tug.org . 2016-03-23.
3. Web site: Contributor Sebastian Rahtz. CTAN. 2016-03-23.
4. Web site: Sebastian Rahtz . CAA International . 2016-02-16 . 2016-03-23.
5. Web site: iii. Preface and Acknowledgments - The TEI Guidelines . Tei-c.org . 2015-10-15 . 2016-03-23.
6. Web site: OxGarage document conversion service . 2016-03-24.
7. Web site: CLAROS: the World of Ancient Art on the Semantic Web . 2016-03-24.
8. Web site: Oxford Text Archive . 2016-03-24.
9. Web site: The Oxford Text Archive – downloads in 2015 - Martin Wynne. Martin. Wynne.
10. Web site: OSS Watch: independent advice on free and open source software . 2016-03-24.
11. Web site: Sebastian's Rahtz minimal home page. Users.ox.ac.uk. https://web.archive.org/web/20160325203135/http://users.ox.ac.uk/~rahtz/. 25 March 2016. 2017-04-03. dead. dmy-all.
12. Web site: IT Architecture Group, University of Oxford . 2016-09-27 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20160927111020/https://www.it.ox.ac.uk/governance/it-architecture#membership . 27 September 2016 . dmy-all .
13. Web site: Gmane Loom. comments.gmane.org. 29 March 2016. 20 September 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160920221620/http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.text.tei.general/19908. dead.
14. Web site: SPQR a digital legacy: what Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz did for us. 7 September 2016. Oxford e-Research Centre.
15. Web site: Sebastian Rahtz, a celebration of his work. University of Oxford Podcasts.