Barnes & Noble to Open New Store At 614 South Meadow, Ithaca, New York; New Bookstore Debuts On December 4.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2002

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world's largest bookseller, will open a new 25,000-square-foot bookstore on December 4 at 614 South Meadow in Ithaca, New York. The store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a cafe serving Starbucks coffee. The new Ithaca Barnes & Noble will be open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday, and employ more than 50 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the new Ithaca Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, December 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. A portion of the Preview Night sales will benefit the Family Reading Partnership.

Barnes & Noble's bookselling innovations have established it as the number-one operator of retail bookstores in America. Its innovations include:

-- The Readers' Advantage membership program. Designed for Barnes & Noble's best customers, this program gives members an additional 10 percent off virtually every item in Barnes & Noble stores and 5 percent off already discounted prices online at Barnes & Noble.com. The annual fee is $25.

-- Rapid special-order service. Booksellers are able to access the real-time inventory of books in the company's distribution network, enabling its booksellers to order and confirm the availability of over one million titles at the click of a button.

-- 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.

-- The Discover Great New Writers program. The leader in discovering new writers, the Discover program, now in its 13th year, has an unparalleled record of finding tomorrow's literary stars from today's publishing newcomers. Over the years, Discover has prominently featured and promoted such writers as Frank McCourt, Jonathan Franzen, Laura Hillenbrand, Hampton Sides and Tracy Chevalier.

"We have become the market leader because of our unparalleled selection, service, convenience and the most sophisticated inventory systems in all of bookselling," said Mitchell Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "Our new rapid special-order systems enable us to offer our customers the largest selection and fastest delivery of any bookseller. In short, if we don't have it on our shelves, we'll get it for you and offer the convenience of in-store pickup or home delivery."

Store manager Pamela Lukas said, "We have the ability to order the books our customers need and adjust the selection to their lifestyles and interests. We also plan to have an ongoing series of author signings and book discussion groups."

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 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 1,186 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.