[rob-olmos]

Adding to the GP & sibling: Even in Los Angeles with some of the bigger libraries the IT/programming books were on the older (outdated?) side.. The more modern material was at the book stores like Barnes, Borders, or another one at the mall (I don't remember if it was B Dalton, Walden, or something else).. thankfully I could skateboard there after school or work and read them there for the evening since I couldn't afford them. Getting the internet and SNR of content back then was a game changer to me too.

[danaris]

I think it's fair to say that, particularly through the '80s and '90s, the IT/programming books were outliers in how fast they became outdated, because the field was just moving so very quickly. (It still is, to a large extent, but now we have the internet to disseminate that information.)

For research on most topics, from history to social sciences to particle physics, the books at the library (or available through interlibrary loan) would be plenty recent enough for anyone not already specializing in the field, and such people would likely already have access to at least a college/university library, and likely a variety of academic journal subscriptions (often through said college/university library).

[dharmab]

Yup, I had no free resources on programming anything more complex than BASIC until I had reliable internet. I bought my first copy of Linux and a beginner's guide at B&N, for example.