I have taught College Algebra several times and will teach it again in the next semester. College Algebra, according to the the catalogue of my college, is described as follows:
This course provides students an opportunity to gain algebraic knowledge needed in many different fields such as engineering, business, education, science, computer technology, and mathematics. Graphical, numerical, symbolic, and verbal methods support the study of functions and their corresponding equations and inequalities. Students will study linear, quadratic, rational, exponential, logarithmic, inverse, composite, radical, and absolute value functions; systems of equations and inequalities modeling applied problems; and curve fitting techniques. There will be extensive use of graphing calculators.
I have been using College Algebra with Modeling & Visualization; Hardcover; Author ‑ Gary K. Rockswold as the textbook for the past few semesters. This book was not chosen by myself; it is the "default value" determined by other teachers when I started teaching. One issue that I have with this textbook (as with many other textbooks) is that newer edition will be available every several years (I think for this particular one, the sixth edition has been published), which increased my burden in preparation. I am searching for a "steady" textbook such as Serge Lang's Basic Mathematics, the latest edition being published in 1986 and since the author has deceased, unlikely there will be a newer edition every few years. However, the Basic Mathematics may not be a suitable College Algebra textbook, based on the description above.
I am here asking for a "stable" College Algebra textbooks that preferably satisfies the following conditions:
- It must fit the description of the course mentioned above.
- Newer editions will very unlikely be published frequently. This might imply that the textbook is very old, but this is okay with me as long as it is still available and fit the description.
- I do not need fancy textbooks. I prefer plain and cheap ones (similar to "Serge Lang's Basic Mathematics" in style.)
Edit: I wrote the question under the assumption that Serge Lang's Basic Mathematics is not suitable for this course. But perhaps by teaching from selected chapters from this book, this book will be a tolerable choice for College Algebra?