Letter from the President:

To Our Valued Partners:

This is an exciting time for Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. We are the nation’s leading academic retailer – but the campus lifestyle that we sell to is changing fast. Our customers - our students, are moving in new directions, and so must we.

The textbook is beginning to lose its authority as a teaching aid. High prices are only accelerating the trend, but new edition books are more often not being required. And so, anticipated textbook sales are declining. The publishers see the horizon … and it’s fast approaching.

For Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, 2004 was a breakthrough year, and breakthrough business must be our focus if we are to grow. How will we break out of business-as-usual and really deliver for students beyond textbook sales? We need to understand what they want – and we need to act. And that is just what we’ve been doing . . .