I am not a member of SAM yet, but I am thinking about joining a local assembly. I was wondering if simply joining a local assembly grants any access to the online resources from the website or if one needs to also be an national member to get theses benefits.
I realize this is probably a silly question, but I did not see a direct answer to it on the SAM website.

I believe they are one and the same. You join the national Society, you attend the local chapter.

Some, perhaps most, assemblies require national membership and may charge additional annual dues for the local assembly after a short period as a "guest." The S.A.M. site has a "members only" area that is only available to national members.

Thank you for your responses. I did not realize that in general the national membership is required to be in an assembly. I only have attended once to the assembly near me so they haven't even mentioned actually joining yet.

I'll send you a copy of the SAM magazine ("M U M") but, don't tell anyone! (secret stuff!)

My local magicians group is a combined SAM and IBM so I am wondering which of the two would be better to join. The price of both them are about the same, though with a student discount SAM is cheaper. But the price difference is not too big of a factor for me, though joining both would be too expensive for me at this moment. I am open to any opinions but I also ask specifically about the following:

How do the magazines MUM and Linking Rings compare?
Does SAM or IBM have better online resources?
Does SAM or IBM have more online resources?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. And I know this the choice between SAM and IBM is probably mostly about personal preferences. So please try give the reasons behind opinions.

If you haven't joined either yet, I recommend joining the S.A.M.
MUM magazine is a far better magazine, in my opinion. The magazine itself is worth the price of membership.

I agree with Ba Ba Booey (and his clever postometer) that MUM mag is worth the price. But so is contributing to the growth and fraternity of Magic. Keeping the clubs alive keeps magic alive.