Humans who elect to become magic-users must not wear armor and can carry only a dagger for protection. They can, however, use almost all magical items, but not magical swords and other magical arms other than daggers. They have the advantage (shared with clerics and some elves*) of being able to work magical spells. At the start, however, they can cast only one spell and must advance a level in experience before they can learn another. Thus the magic-user starts out as an extremely weak character, but if he survives and rises in experience, he becomes increasingly powerful... Magic-users, of course, may be either... lawful or chaotic, and most of their spells remain the same. - Holmes, pg. 6
The magic-user acquires books containing the spells, the study of which allows him to memorize a spell for use. He can then throw the spell by saying the magic words and making gestures with his hands. This means that a magic-user bound and gagged cannot use his magic... A magic-user must concentrate on his spell, so he can not cast a spell and walk or run at the same time, and he certainly can not cast a spell while engaged in combat. Then, after all that, the spell may not work! - Holmes, pg. 13
To learn a spell, the magic-user must be completely rested. A good night's sleep is enough. The character then gets out the spell book and studies the spells to be used, which takes an hour or less... In more advanced games, adventures may last more than a day. In such cases, a magic-user can study spells each morning, if completely rested. A mule should be brought along on long adventures, to carry the spell book^ along with normal equipment. But beware! If the book is lost... - Mentzer Basic PM, pg. 38
Also, from Mentzer:
Magic-users never trade spells, nor do they ever allow anyone (except their teachers) to read their spell books.
Magic-users also have the following abilities, per Holmes:
SCROLL GENERATION
Scrolls are written in magic runes that fade from the page as they are read, so a scroll also can only be used once. Magic users may make a scroll of a spell they already "know" (i.e. have in their magic book) at a cost of 100 gold pieces and 1 week's work for each spell of the first level, 200 gold pieces and 2 weeks for a second level spell (if the magic-user is third level), etc.
MAGIC RESEARCH
It is also possible for a magic-user, through the expenditure of much money for research, to create new spells. The Dungeon Master must agree that the spell is appropriate to the level of the character trying to create it, the magic-user must spend 2000 gold pieces per level of spell and one week of time. He then has a 20% chance of success... [if] the spell research was successful, the magic-user writes it into his book and may use the spell...
Lastly, once more from Mentzer Basic Players Manual, pg. 38:
If a new spell is found on a scroll, it may be added to the magic-user's book - but this can only be done once for each scroll spell, and uses up the scroll in the process. If the spell is of too high a level to be cast, it cannot be put into the book... A spell on a scroll may be saved, to put into a book at a future time. [However] any magic-user can cast a spell found on a scroll as if it were memorized, regardless of the level of the spell.
For info on what spells a beginning magic-user has in his or her 1st level spell book, see HERE.
* In our game, as all PCs are high elves, they have magic abilities. Any elf can multi-class as a magic-user + another qualified class; however, an elf may also choose to be a magic-user only. In this case, they follow the spell book generation rules as a magic-user, except they use the elf spell list. Otherwise, for a multi-classed elf, the DM will let you know what spells are in your book.
^ Still trying to figure out how I want to deal with this "lugging of the spell book bit", see HERE for some thoughts (toward bottom of post), but gonna sleep on it.
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