Americans Know Reading to Children is Important, But Admit They Don't.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 8, 1999--

Barnes & Noble Survey Reveals Only 28% of Americans Read to a

Child Every Day

While virtually all Americans polled (98%) believe that reading to children is important to early development, approximately half never or rarely read to their children, according to a recent Yankelovich survey commissioned by Barnes & Noble, Inc., the nation's largest bookseller. Previous studies have proven that children's access and exposure to books, not poverty, is the "critical variable affecting reading."(James McQuillan, The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, 1998).

In the Yankelovich study, 75% of Americans believed it is extremely important and 23% believed it is very important to read to children; one percent felt it is somewhat important, and one percent said they were not sure. However, 28% of those interviewed never read to a particular child, 17% rarely do, and 3% are not sure, for a total of 48%.

"In order to get more Americans reading to their children, they must have access to books," said Tom Tolworthy, president of Barnes & Noble Booksellers. "Barnes & Noble stores throughout the country are committed to doing just that. Our longstanding partnership with First Book puts books in the hands of children with little or no access to books of their own."

Founded in 1992, First Book, a national nonprofit literacy organization, works with existing local literacy programs to distribute new books and educational materials to local organizations already working to reach children.

Other results of the Yankelovich survey on America's reading habits include:

-- Only 28% of Americans read to a child every day, 15% several times a week, and nine percent once a week.

-- Of those read to, more than half (56%) said that their mothers read to them, followed by their reading to themselves (17%). Only seven percent said their fathers or a sibling read to them.

-- Only 21% of Americans know what literacy experts recommend as the minimum amount of time that should be spent reading to a child: 20 minutes a day. More than half of Americans believe those experts recommend either 30 minutes (31%) or an hour (28%).

Yankelovich Partners conducted telephone interviews via random digit dial with 1,003 adult Americans age 18 and older from April 22-25, 1999. The margin of error for the results is plus or minus three percent.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) operates 521 Barnes & Noble and 466 B. Dalton bookstores. Barnes & Noble stores stock an authoritative selection of book titles and provide access to more than one million titles. They offer books from more than 50,000 publisher imprints with an emphasis on small, independent publishers and university presses. Barnes & Noble is one of the world's largest booksellers on the World Wide Web (http://www.bn.com), the exclusive bookseller on America Online (Keyword: bn). and has the largest standing inventory of any bookseller. Barnes & Noble also publishes books under its own imprint for exclusive sale through its retail stores, mail-order catalogs, and Web site.

General financial information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's investor relations Web site: http://www.shareholder.com/bks/.