Barnes & Noble to Open New Store At 7849 North Blackstone Avenue Fresno, California; New Bookstore Debuts On June 5.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2002

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world's largest bookseller, will relocate its Fresno store to a newly expanded 25,000-square-foot bookstore at 7849 North Blackstone Avenue, in the Villagio Retail Center, on June 5. Concurrently, the existing store at 21 East Shaw Avenue will close. The new store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a cafe serving Starbucks coffee. The new Fresno Barnes & Noble will be open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day and employ approximately 65 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the new Fresno Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, June 4, from 6 to 9 p.m. The evening's festivities will begin with a ribbon cutting at 6 p.m. Armen Nalbandian will play eclectic jazz on a Fender Rhodes throughout the evening. A portion of the Preview Night sales will benefit the Childrens Hospital of Central California.

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 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. Its 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.

-- Every CD listening stations. The store's music department features the most
advanced listening technology, enabling customers to listen to any CD in the
store 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.

"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 Dusty Guthier said, "Bookselling is a very local business. Underlying our success is our expertise at tailoring the selection of every store to the community it serves. I have the ability to order the books my customers need and adjust the selection to the lifestyles and interests of this community. We also plan to have an ongoing series of author signing and book discussion groups."

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is the world's largest bookseller, operating 591 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 49 states. It also operates 305 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 1,038 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.