I think this hits the nail on the head. I don't think the new interface is bad per se, it's just optimized for a different goal than the one of most current visitors of archive.org. It would probably work best as a page dedicated to "dumb user discovery" - which might very well be an user-base worth pursuing.
This is one of those cases where creating user personas and trying to come up with different interfaces optimised for each of them would probably be the best approach.
Linking to page x of result set y so you can send it to a colleague...
Or even say I've scrolled dozens of pages down, then navigate to a link, when I use my browsers back button I'm not back at the top of a list with no way to easily get back to where I was.
1) As a user is scrolling, you can use PushState to update the URL to provide actual linkable pages. It does make re-clicking that link in the future odd though because that page's results are now at the top of the screen so scrolling up doesn't really make sense, but it at least provides the ability to deep link.
2) Sites like Pinterest solve this by opening an item's details page on click in an overlay above the infinite grid. That way when you close it (or click back in your browser) the modal just gets dismissed and you're right where you left off in the infinite scroll.
Sorry, but I strongly believe infinite scrolling creates more problems than it solves - and I'm not entirely sure it solves much of a problem in the first place; the "consume, consume, consume" mentality that it's oriented towards is great for things like news agencies trying to push as many stories as it can to its readers, but this is an archive of content to be browsed in a more... thoughtful manner.
It sure does when it's used inappropriately. But can you imagine Pinterest, say, without it?
Sure it sacrifices findability or reproducibility of a view in exchange for discoverability and presentation of new content but that sacrifice works - and IMO it can work for an archive.
Provided items of content can be found, can be tagged by users (bookmarks anyone?) then if you're targetting the presentation of continuously updated content sources infinite scroll is fine IMO.
Do you have a problem with HN because one can't link to a specific view of a list of stories? Or with Google because SERPs change? Or with your favourite blog because the front-page updates with each new post?
2) There's nothing inherently wrong with "consume, consume, consume". I don't think anyone in the world would argue that Pinterest is evil or bad. It's a site for consuming en masse, plain and simple, and an infinite scroll enhances the experience. Clicking "next" 50 times would significantly ruin the user experience on that (and similar) sites.
pinterest, facebook or twitter are whole-content streams, that's why they benefit from infinite scroll.
I agree with all of your other concerns, but it is not the responsibility of the web designer to accommodate people who selectively disable parts of their website. If you turn off CSS, or the color blue, your experience will degrade, but that's 100% your fault. The same is true with javascript.
It runs quite well on my 1.8ghz Atom netbook and my Nexus 5. The JS they're using doesn't seem that expensive.
I disagree, it's about discoverability, scroll to discover random new things. If you're there for a specific thing you won't be wildly scrolling; if you're not then they are doing what you want they're displaying possible areas of interest.
I'm not commenting on the implementation though first look of a few seconds and it seems slow but otherwise quite apposite and cleanly designed.
Don't personally like the accordion-like drop-down of the page to show content above the tabs, but it's OK.
No. Are we talking about a library or a social site? It's about results, not randomly killing time.
Also, please explain "wildly scrolling?" Who does that? If I'm interested in the 12th search result, is that wild?
How do you know you're interested in the 12th result. Either you did a search and all content displayed is in unknown positions or you already know what you're looking for in which case the scroll is entirely irrelevant, no?
Libraries have 2 main use cases I'd warrant:
1. You go to the library find just to find something to read or some media to consume.
2. You go to the library with a specific piece of media you are looking for (whether that's a title or a content requirement, doesn't matter for this analysis).
Now my local library addresses both of these (physically and in virtual presence). They have shelves with things indexed and categorised for those in use case 2. They have categories of type, displays or new acquisitions, monthly subjects of interest and such for those in use case 1.
It's similar again to visiting a museum, you can go to visit a specific exhibit[ion] (use case 2) or you can go to see what they have (use case 1) - personally I do both.
Now if the museum instead of showing lots of exhibits and having teaser displays and such just had all the exhibits locked in rooms and you had to ask for the key to the specific thing you wanted to look at, then it would make for a far from rich experience except for the very few who already know the content of the museum in depth.
As it is with Archive.org, if you know the content breadth, the sections, the actual content in detail then you don't need to use the scroll, you'll be going direct to the content you know you want. If not then they have chance for you to browse and view content you may not have known was there.
The site is very broken if you don't have Javascript enabled. I am scared how CPU intense it would be on my mobile or cheap netbook. The details of collections don't even display any items.
Where is the list of files inside an item? Previously there was a nice table. Now everything seems to focus on images instead. IA hosts a lot of things that are not visual. Music, texts, data. Those seem like second row citizens now. The cover of an album tells me .. nothing about the music itself.
For an archive, I think this is a rather bad interface. The technical implementation seems very un-archivey and more suited to a "dumb user" discovery interface built upon an existing well-presented archive. :(
PS: The categories and tags on the side are a nice addition.
If someone from IA reads this, I think at least https://archive.org/advancedsearch.php is not using output buffering which might make user's performance much better.
Overall the site is very very slow.
edit: Some comparison images.
Old: http://i.imgur.com/gJXgJhI.png
New default: http://i.imgur.com/JOEoAiu.png
New list: http://i.imgur.com/m2d1Gf4.png
Old: http://i.imgur.com/X7e2s5T.png
New: http://i.imgur.com/9HsrQO1.png