Concerted efforts to digitalize MS and PhD theses? Some universities digitize their masters and doctoral theses already and some of them even share them for free online. However, there are enough that are not digitized that inter-library loan remains often necessary for literature searches. Obviously this is just a matter of time until the librarians catch up with the modern era. However, government funding is often involved and could be leveraged towards progress in those instances. Has this been proposed already? Have similar mechanisms been proposed?
Has this been proposed already? Have similar mechanisms been proposed?


Yes, it was proposed, this was even implemented, partially or at a whole country level. In Russia, for example, all PhD theses' copies are centrally stored, scanned and recognized (if there wasn't already a digital copy) as a part of the degree awarding process. From 2005 the process needed a digital copy submitting, also, most of the old theses(~1.5M total) from 1951 were scanned.