Oct. 29, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, will open a new bookstore on November 4 in the South Plains Mall at 6002 Slide Road, Lubbock, Texas. Concurrently, the Barnes & Noble at 6707 Slide Road will close. The new store will stock close to 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles and include a café serving Starbucks coffee. Special features will include a B&N@School section with educational tools for parents, teachers and librarians. The new Lubbock Barnes & Noble will be open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. The store will employ approximately 80 people from the community.

The public is invited to a Preview Night Party at the new Lubbock Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, November 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. A portion of the Preview Night sales will benefit Communities In Schools. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. Children’s author and entertainer Tim McKenzie will appear at 8 p.m. Musician Susan Grisanti will perform throughout the evening and Clifford the Big Red Dog will be on hand to meet his fans.

The new store will host a signing of Donnie Brown Weddings with author Donnie Brown on Saturday, November 14, at 1 p.m. On Saturday, November 28, Mike Huckabee will sign copies of Do the Right Thing at 10:30 a.m.

Barnes & Noble is the nation’s top bookseller brand for the sixth year in a row, as determined by a combination of the brand’s performance on familiarity, quality and purchase intent; the top bookseller in quality for the second year in a row and the number two retailer in trust, 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.
• Advanced technology movie, audiobook and music-previewing system.