Barnes & Noble to Open New Store At Prudential Center, Boston, Massachusetts; New Bookstore Debuts On June 26.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2002

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, will open a new 30,000-square-foot bookstore on June 26 at 800 Boylston Street, in the Huntington Arcade, at The Shops at Prudential Center. The store will stock over 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include an in-store cafe serving Starbucks coffee, a full line of pastries and Cheesecake Factory products, as well as panini sandwiches. The new Prudential Center Barnes & Noble will be open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day and will employ approximately 100 people from the community.

The Prudential Center Barnes & Noble store will be the first to introduce the Barnes & Noble Cafe Express to accommodate commuters as well as shoppers at the Prudential Center. Located next to the Huntington office building, the Cafe Express will serve coffee, tea, a wide assortment of bottled beverages and pastries, and offer newspapers and magazines. The Barnes & Noble Cafe Express will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

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

- 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.

- RedDotNet revolutionary music sampling system. The store's music department
will feature RedDotNet, the most advanced listening technology, enabling
customers to listen to any CD and sample up to 200,000 music titles 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.

- 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.

- 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 Times will be held three times a
week.

"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 David Fox Spooner 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 599 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 49 states. It also operates 298 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.