Barnes & Noble Signs Lease for Merced, California Store; Store Will Open in August 2003.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 2002

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, announced it has signed a lease agreement to open a new Barnes & Noble bookstore in Merced, California. The 22,000-square-foot store, expected to open in August 2003, will be located in the Merced Marketplace on West Olive and Austin Avenues. The store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a cafe serving Starbucks coffee.

"We are delighted to bring Barnes & Noble to Merced," said Mitchell Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "We will offer readers young and old unparalleled selection, service, and convenience. We will also strive to make the store an integral part of the community by hosting an ongoing series of author signings, book discussion groups, and children's events."

Barnes & Noble's bookselling innovations include:

- The Readers' Advantage membership program. Designed for Barnes & Noble's best customers, this program gives members an additional 10 percent off everything they buy. The annual fee is $25.

- Rapid special-order service. Special orders have been commonplace in bookselling, but Barnes & Noble's new service takes it to new heights in terms of selection and speed of delivery. It's booksellers are able to instantly access the real-time inventory of every title in the company's distribution network, enabling its booksellers to order and confirm the availability of virtually any book in print at the click of a button. With more than one million titles available, Barnes & Noble stocks more books than any competing retail or online bookseller, and substantially more titles than even the largest book wholesalers.

- Large-scale children's departments that are bigger than most typical bookstores. Stocking over 15,000 titles in an easy-to-browse environment, Barnes & Noble Junior departments are designed to appeal to children, parents, teachers and librarians. Children's story hours will be held twice a week.

- The RedDotNet revolutionary music sampling system. The store's music department will feature RedDotNet, the most advanced listening technology. RedDotNet enables customers to listen to any CD in the store, sampling up to 200,000 music titles by simply passing it under a scanner. Connected to the company's online electronic music catalog, the store's listening stations make "browsing with your ears" a reality.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is the world's largest bookseller, operating 606 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 49 states. It also operates 286 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 (http://www.bn.com) in which it owns a 36% interest.

Barnes & Noble also has approximately a 60% interest in GameStop (NYSE: GME), the nation's largest video-game and entertainment-software specialty retailer with 1,128 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.