Wikipedia

Sebastian Rahtz

Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (13 February 1955 – 15 March 2016) (SPQR) was a British digital humanities information professional.[1][2]

Sebastian Rahtz
Sebastian Rahtz in 2015
Born
Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz

(1955-02-13)13 February 1955
Bristol, England
Died15 March 2016(2016-03-15) (aged 61)
Oxford, England
Resting placeOxford, England
NationalityBritish
Other namesSPQR
Stormageddon Rahtz[citation needed]
Alma materUniversity College London (PhD)
Known forTeX
Text Encoding Initiative
SpouseLeonor Barroca
Children2
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Exeter
University of Southampton
University of Oxford
Oxford University Computing Services
ThesisFunerary epitaphs and iconography : an analysis of the Protestant Cemetery, Rome (1974)

Education and early life

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Born in 1955 to archaeologist Philip Rahtz, Sebastian also trained in archaeology, and was awarded a PhD in 1974 from University College London.[3]

Career

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Rahtz developed an interest in computing came from working on the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) in 1982.[4]

Rahtz was a long-term contributor to several communities in the broader digital humanities, including LGPN, TeX,[5][6] computer methods in archaeology,[7] and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI).[8] 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,[9] CLAROS,[10] the Oxford Text Archive,[11] Text Creation Partnership[12] and OSS Watch.[13]

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.[14] He joined the department in 1999 from Elsevier, having previously served as 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.[15] He took medical retirement from IT Services in the late summer of 2015.

Publications

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  • 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.

Legacy

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In September 2016, Oxford University ran a whole-day event celebrating his life, with speakers talking about his projects.[16][17][18][19] Many of the talks are available as podcasts.[20]

Personal life

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He died in 2016, from brain cancer.[21]

References

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  1. ^ Sebastian Rahtz publications indexed by Google Scholar  
  2. ^ Sebastian Rahtz publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  3. ^ Rahtz, Sebastian Patrick Quintus (1974). Funerary epitaphs and iconography : an analysis of the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. exlibrisgroup.com (PhD thesis). University College London. OCLC 941053430.
  4. ^ "Homepage, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names". lgpn.ox.ac.uk. University of Oxford. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  5. ^ "Sebastian Rahtz - Interview - TeX Users Group". Tug.org. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  6. ^ "Contributor Sebastian Rahtz". CTAN. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  7. ^ "Sebastian Rahtz". CAA International. 16 February 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  8. ^ "iii. Preface and Acknowledgments - The TEI Guidelines". Tei-c.org. 15 October 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  9. ^ "OxGarage document conversion service". Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  10. ^ "CLAROS: the World of Ancient Art on the Semantic Web". Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  11. ^ "Oxford Text Archive". Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  12. ^ Wynne, Martin. "The Oxford Text Archive – downloads in 2015 - Martin Wynne".
  13. ^ "OSS Watch: independent advice on free and open source software". Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  14. ^ "Sebastian's Rahtz minimal home page". Users.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  15. ^ "IT Architecture Group, University of Oxford". Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 27 September 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  16. ^ "SPQR a digital legacy: what Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz did for us". Oxford e-Research Centre. 7 September 2016.
  17. ^ Sebastian Rahtz (1955–2016): A brief memoir by Lou Burnard
  18. ^ R.I.P. — S.P.Q.R Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (13.2.1955–15.3.2016) by Frank Mittelbach and Joan Richmond
  19. ^ Sebastian Rahtz 1955–2016 by Willard McCarty at the Wayback Machine (archived August 16, 2021)
  20. ^ "Sebastian Rahtz, a celebration of his work". University of Oxford Podcasts.
  21. ^ "Gmane Loom". comments.gmane.org. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2016.


  Media related to Sebastian Rahtz at Wikimedia Commons

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