Barnes & Noble to Open New Store in The Shops at Wiregrass at 28152 Paseo Drive, Wesley Chapel, Florida

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, will open a new bookstore on October 30 in The Shops at Wiregrass at 28152 Paseo Drive, Wesley Chapel, Florida. The store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a café serving Starbucks coffee. The new Barnes & Noble Wiregrass will be open every day from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. and employ approximately 100 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the new Barnes & Noble Wiregrass on Wednesday, October 29, from 6 to 9 p.m. A portion of the preview night sales will benefit the Pasco County School Board. A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. Entertainment will be provided by the Wiregrass Ranch High School Saxophone Quartet. Cookie Monster will be on hand to meet his fans.

The store will host special Storytimes with Costume Characters including Clifford’s First Halloween (with Costume) Friday October 31, at 7:30 p.m.; Meet Cookie Monster Storytime (with Costume) Saturday, November 1, at 2 p.m.; and Meet Clifford the Big Red Dog Storytime (with Costume) Sunday, November 2, at 4 p.m.

Barnes & Noble is the nation’s top bookseller in quality, and for the fifth year in a row, the top bookseller brand, as determined by a combination of the brand’s performance on familiarity, quality and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend^® Brand Study by Harris Interactive^®. The new store will feature:

• The Barnes & Noble Membership Program. Designed for Barnes & Noble’s best customers, this program gives Members 40% off hardcover fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, 20% off all other adult hardcover books, and 10% off virtually everything else in Barnes & Noble stores and online at Barnes & Noble.com. The annual fee is $25.

• Rapid special-order service. Can’t find it on the shelf? Barnes & Noble’s massive warehouse inventory is available in real-time, enabling its booksellers to order and confirm the availability of over one million titles at the click of a button.
• Large-scale children’s department. Bigger than most typical bookstores and stocking more than 15,000 titles in an easy-to-browse environment, the "Barnes & Noble Jr.” department is designed to appeal to children, parents, teachers and librarians. Children’s Storytime will be held weekly.
• Advanced technology movie, audiobook and music-previewing system. The store will feature RedDotNet, the most advanced listening and previewing technology. RedDotNet enables customers to preview select DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, audiobooks or CDs in the store, sampling a title by simply passing it under a scanner. Connected to the company’s online electronic catalog, the store’s listening stations make "browsing with your ears” a reality. Thanks to the latest technology, RedDotNet stations also allow customers to view a three-minute clip of more than 7,000 DVDs. Additional music titles are available for special order.
• Giant Newsstand. The store’s newsstand stocks more than 2,000 titles, including hundreds of hard-to-find specialty magazines, and out-of-town newspapers.
• Wi-Fi Service. AT&T Wi-Fi^SM service allows customers to use their laptop computers and personal digital assistants anywhere in the store or café to communicate online, surf the Internet and connect to corporate networks at speeds 50 to 100 times as fast as a dial-up connection. A single two-hour session costs $3.95, and an annual membership with unlimited access to Barnes & Noble and more than 50,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots also is available.
• Community Center. The store will serve as a local community center, hosting a number of community events throughout the year. They will include author readings and discussions, book clubs and programs with local literary and cultural organizations. The store also will hold bookfairs, partnering with local schools and other community institutions. For more information, please contact Cynthia Mason at 813-973-2833.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 796 bookstores in 50 states. The company is the nation’s top bookseller in quality, and for the fifth year in a row, the top bookseller brand, as determined by a combination of the brand’s performance on familiarity, quality and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend^® Brand Study by Harris Interactive^®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.