i love to look at quilt mags. for me it is like petting fabric. i get ideas and patterns, new techniques. even like the advertising, however, there is too much of it. the ads allow me to check out the newest fabric lines and tools so that when i go to the lqs i already know what i am looking for.
our local guild has a table of free items every meeting and there are always mags there. also, garage sales and thrift shops. quilt shows often have country store where you can get really good deals on bundles of mags, or really cheap used books. i have never tried the library for quilt books, will have to dust off my library card. tee-hee
having said all that, i use the internet most of all.