As a young hacker in the 70's and 80's, magazines were my primary source of docs. I lived in a remote community where such technology was really, really foreign at first. My relatives lived in other parts of the state, some very remote, some in the city. I had a HAM-/CB-enthusiastic hacker uncle I'd regularly visit in one end of the state (outback) and plenty of relatives in the major city and countryside where I lived, so my docs-collecting mission during a routine adventuring between these family areas went something like this:

1. If in the city/small town: go to the library, read latest BYTE magazine, Radio Electronics, a few other electronics (then computer-) magazines, and so on[1]. Then, browse back issues - my library had them all in the first few years - find code that I might adapt to my machine, copy notes or - remember it - for when I got home later. I usually didn't check anything out because I never, ever gave back BYTE magazines I loaned from the library, just because I never knew when I'd be back (or that was my excuse). So, the library was just for reference/note-taking. This actually made going on those boring family visits quite palatable.

2. If in the city: Go to every newsagent/magazine dealer in my route, read every single tech magazine - BYTE, Dr. Dobbs Journal, ZAP, etc. as quickly as possible, before being asked to leave. Buy something if possible, but only if a review finds something interesting. Usually, leave with a BYTE, at least. If I could afford it, always with a DDJ too. Repeat at every newsagent in the city.

3. If I am in the country, at Uncle Hacker-Shacks: In between hacking on his radios and amplifiers, burning my fingers on some new Fun Way Into Electronics Dick Smith kits, and with those toasty digits browsing his extensive magazine collection, including every BYTE issue since the beginning (it's the 70's/80's, I'm a teen) .. do chores (lawns/wood-chopping/fishing/cleaning/reading-to-little-kids) and save coins for photocopying .. take uncles magazines to get photocopies of interesting things, create my own ring-binder full of such things to take back home with me. Somehow, my uncle always had really great magazines and books and things, way, way out there beyond the dusty horizon... and I'd go home after the holidays, with copies of the best of it.

Usually BYTE magazine articles for systems (Apple/C64/etc.) similar enough to mine (Oric-1) to have some use for me, later, when I got back home to my computer. During those long bus, car, train, plane rides, I'd often spend more time reading and re-reading the listings, than I did typing it in when I finally got home.

BYTE was huge to me, it was my first real foray into cross-platform/multi-discipline software development, I literally had no choice but to port things to the Oric-1, if I wanted to do anything with it. I really wish I still had those old ring-binders, it'd be a blast to see my old notes and printouts (had the Oric printer for such things, it was my long-term archive, which I've long-since lost..)

The skills I gained, basically from 8 years old to 18 years old, by reading these magazines - truly informed an important part of my professional toolbox, which have stuck with me for years of course, since this was an era where a significant part of computing technology was being worked out.

I really wonder how kids these days get access to the evolutionary, real-time nature of the fields they're interested in. I guess MAKE filled that hole for a while.

EDIT: Just wanted to say, Issue #1 of BYTE is really worth a read .. "Assembling your own Assembler", and "Recycling used IC's" is so resonant with my Sunday-afternoon musings about the perils of AI and ML on my teenagers' mindset .. seems like someone else is gonna get some burned fingers, soon enough ..

[1] - (I think I read my first 2600 this way also...)