Barnes & Noble to Open New Store in the Village of Birkdale in Huntersville, North Carolina; New Bookstore Debuts On November 6.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2002

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, will open a 23,500-square-foot bookstore on November 6 at 8725 Townley Road in the Village of Birkdale in Huntersville, North Carolina. The store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a cafe serving food, desserts, and Starbucks coffee. The new Birkdale Barnes & Noble will be open on Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and employ approximately 50 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the Birkdale Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, November 5, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The evening festivities will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by the Mayor of Huntersville, Kim Philips and the Director of Lake Norman Charter School, Ben Putnam. Preview Night will also include live music performances by harpist Liesel Tison from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., flutist Maria Tardun from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and violinist Susan Strobel from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Coffee, iced tea, hors d'oeuvres and dessert samplings from the Barnes & Noble Cafe will be served. For children, there will storytime with Ben Putnam at 6:30 p.m., and a visit from the Mouse Cookie character who will greet fans throughout the evening. A portion of the Preview Night sales will benefit the Lake Norman Charter School of Huntersville.

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.

- 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 Danny Capps 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 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.