Dive Summary:

• The American Historical Society has asked graduate programs and university libraries to keep dissertations off of the Internet for six years.
• The organization argues that publishers are not likely to give book deals for material that has already been distributed online — and those publishing deals are often the key to professional advancement.
• While dissertations have long been available via inter-library loan or microfilm, the Internet has created a nearly frictionless market for them and something should be done to rein it in, the group says.

From the article:

... With its statement, the AHA says that it accepts that hiring practices must remain what they are, that history is and will remain a "book-based discipline" (a claim historian Adam Crymble rightly disputes), and that the public good must remain at odds with that of the discipline and its practitioners​. ...