Barnes & Noble Publishes Richard Corman's Photo Book, I Am Proud: The Athletes of Special Olympics.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2003

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS):

114 Photos, Foreword by Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Timothy P. Shriver,

and Messages from Presidents, Poets, Statesmen, and the Athletes

Themselves on the Meaning of Special Olympics 

"Thirty years ago I was told that I wasn't going to be anybody, that I would be put in an institution. Today, I stand here to say that I am somebody," writes Loretta Claiborne, Special Olympics athlete and spokesperson in I Am Proud. And on the facing page to this statement is Richard Corman's photograph of a Special Olympics swimmer. Looking at her, you know without the slightest doubt that she is somebody.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, announced the publication today of Richard Corman's I Am Proud: The Athletes of Special Olympics ($30.00). This extraordinary photographic collection of images captures Special Olympic athletes of all ages competing in numerous sporting events - from track and field to skiing, weightlifting, soccer, swimming, equestrian events, baseball, ping pong, ice skating and ice racing - in competitions worldwide.

In 1968, Eunice Kennedy Shriver organized the First International Special Olympic Games at Soldier Field in Chicago. Today, one million men and women, children and adults, in 150 countries around the world take part in more than 20,000 Special Olympic competitions each year. As Richard Corman writes in his dedication of the book to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her "vision has changed the world." In I Am Proud, we see this vision in action.

"Barnes & Noble is proud to publish this book about champions," said Alan Kahn, president of the Barnes & Noble Publishing Group. "Richard Corman spent ten years taking the pictures in I Am Proud. His portraits of the athletes' grace and strength, of their remarkable determination and undying spirit, give us new insights into the capabilities of people with mental disabilities. As Special Olympics champion Gabrielle Clark of Australia puts it, 'If you want to know what to label me, label me able!'"

Richard Corman's photographs have appeared in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, and Vogue. Glory, a book of Corman's photographs of athletes, was published in 1999. Since 1991, Corman has donated his services to Special Olympics, recording the strength, pride and potential of its athletes. Barnes & Noble also donated many of its services to publish this book.

I Am Proud contains statements from presidents, poets, statesmen and the athletes themselves on the meaning of Special Olympics, such leaders as Presidents George W. Bush and William Clinton, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I Am Proud: The Athletes of Special Olympics is a remarkable pictorial record of a movement whose athletic competitions have changed the lives of millions of people. As founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Timothy P. Shriver, president and CEO of Special Olympics, write in the "Foreword" to the book, "In the following collection of words and images, one sees faces of invitation, of pride, of joy, of skill, of greatness. But one will not find faces seeking sympathy. There is no place for it in the lives of champions."

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is the world's largest bookseller, operating 630 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 49 states. It also operates 245 B. Dalton Bookseller stores, primarily in regional shopping malls. The company offers titles from more than 50,000 publisher imprints, including thousands of small, independent publishers and university presses. It conducts its e-commerce business through Barnes & Noble.com (NASDAQ: BNBN) (http://www.bn.com) in which it owns an approximate 38 percent interest.

Barnes & Noble also has approximately a 60 percent interest in GameStop (NYSE: GME), the nation's largest video-game and entertainment-software specialty retailer with 1,309 stores.

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