Re: rules and books
I find stuff every so often in thrift stores or used book stores. I've purchased gaming books off eBay (that's where I got my copy of the Amber rules). There are a few websites that sell pdf versions of rulebooks (and even hard-copies, sometimes, although the pdfs are cheaper since they don't have to ship them...) I haven't used them, so I don't know the names off the top of my head, but someone else might be able to help out on that one...
On a couple of occasions, the GM has sent me a pdf of the rules for a game I didn't have the books for--either for games where the pdf was available for free, or (in one case) the GM had written the rules up as a pdf and we were play-testing them (at least, I assume that was the case, because I felt like the two of us playing found an astonishing number of omitted details in the game mechanics in the short time we played...the GM didn't say, specifically, that he'd written the rules or that this was a playtest, so that's just the vibe I got from the situation.)