Concerted efforts to digitalize MS and PhD theses?
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.