Barnes & Noble to Open New Store at the Riverbend Marketplace Rome, Georgia; New Bookstore Debuts on October 1

Business Wire, Sept 17, 2003

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 2003

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, will open a new 20,000-square-foot bookstore on October 1 in the Riverbend Marketplace at 1442 Turner McCall Boulevard. The store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a cafe serving Starbucks coffee. The new Rome Barnes & Noble will be open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Sundays from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and employ approximately 55 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the new Rome Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, September 30, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The evening festivities will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Mayor Ronnie Wallace, and include live music, coffee, iced tea and dessert samplings from the Barnes & Noble Cafe. The River Rascals Banjo band will play ragtime, dixieland, and jazz throughout the evening. For children, Clifford, the Big Red Dog, and Curious George will greet fans. Storyteller Jane Cunningham will read to children throughout the evening. A portion of the Preview Night sales will benefit the Rome-Floyd County Library.

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 14th

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 Yann Martel, Frank McCourt, Laura Hillenbrand,

Sebastian Junger, Jeffrey Eugenidies 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 Lynn Rogers 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."

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is the world's largest bookseller, operating 634 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 49 states. It also operates 234 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 (NASDAQ: BNBN) (http://www.bn.com).

Barnes & Noble also has approximately a 63 percent interest in GameStop (NYSE: GME), the nation's largest video-game and entertainment-software specialty retailer with 1,393 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.