What is the purpose of dissertation embargo periods? I just heard about "dissertation embargoes".  My institution recommends that every graduating student place an embargo on their dissertation.

What is a dissertation embargo, and what is its purpose?
An embargo effectively withholds your dissertation from being placed on your institution's open-access dissertation archive (from which anyone can view/download your dissertation).

I have placed an embargo on my dissertation so that I may attempt to get a few more papers published without my dissertation being searchable on the web. It is a common practice in the department where I did my PhD (though, I wondered sometimes if it was really necessary).

For a more complete list of reasons why one would choose to place an embargo on their dissertation, I'm listing here an excerpt taken from a University of New Mexico page:


  Embargos may be appropriate for authors 
  1) who are seeking patents, 
  2) who want to publish their work through a traditional press that considers open access publication to be equivalent to prior publication, 
  3) who have published material from their work with a publisher that does not allow open access release for a certain period of time, or 
  4) who need to protect sensitive data or information.