type public traded as nyse bks predecessor arthur hinds & company founded 1886 1886 first book store opened new york city new york u.s. founder charles m. barnes william barnes g. clifford noble leonard riggio 1 headquarters 122 5th ave manhattan new york city u.s. number of locations 640 retail stores as of january 1 2016 update key people leonard riggio executive chairman products nook sparknotes revenue us 6.069 billion fy 2015 2 operating income us 133.17 million fy 2015 3 net income us 36.6 million fy 2015 total assets us 3.255 billion fy 2015 2 total equity us 1.385 billion fy 2015 3 number of employees 33 000 2016 website www.barnesandnobleinc.com corporate site www.barnesandnoble.com consumer site www.nook.com consumer site barnes & noble inc. is a fortune 500 company the largest retail bookseller in the united states and a leading retailer of content digital media and educational products in the country . the company operates 640 retail stores as of january 1 2016 update in all 50 u.s. states . 4 barnes & noble operates mainly through its barnes & noble booksellers chain of bookstores and the company s headquarters are at 122 fifth avenue in the ladies mile historic district in manhattan in new york city . 5 after a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the american bookstore industry since the 1990s barnes & noble stands as the united states last remaining national bookstore chain . 6 7 previously barnes and noble operated the chain of small b. dalton booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain . the company is known for large retail outlets many of which contain a caf serving starbucks coffee . most stores sell books magazines newspapers dvds graphic novels gifts games music and nook e readers and tablets . contents 1 history 1.1 1886 1929 1.2 1930 1969 1.3 1970s 1.4 1980s 1990s 1.5 2000s 1.6 2010s 2 publishing 3 caf s 4 restaurants 5 community involvement 6 barnes & noble nook 7 college bookstores 8 see also 9 references 10 further reading 11 external links history edit clifford noble in 1893 1886 1929 edit barnes & noble originated in 1886 with a bookstore called arthur hinds & company located in the cooper union building in new york city . 8 9 in the fall of 1886 gilbert clifford noble a then recent harvard graduate from westfield massachusetts was hired to work there as a clerk . 10 in 1894 noble was made a partner and the name of the shop was changed to hinds & noble . 11 in 1901 hinds & noble moved to 31 35 w. 15th street . 12 in 1917 noble bought out hinds and entered into a partnership with william barnes son of his old friend charles ; the name of the store was changed accordingly to barnes & noble . 13 14 charles barnes had opened a book printing business in wheaton illinois in 1873 ; william barnes divested himself of his ownership interest in his father s firm just before his partnership with noble and it would go on to become follett corporation . although the flagship store once featured the motto founded in 1873 the c. m. barnes wilcox company never had any connection to barnes & noble other than the fact that both were partly owned at different times by william barnes . 1930 1969 edit in 1930 noble sold his share of the company to william barnes son john wilcox barnes . 15 noble died on june 6 1936 at the age of 72 . 16 in the long history of the bookstore the namesake partnership was a brief interlude of thirteen years . barnes & noble s former flagship store at 105 fifth avenue in manhattan new york that operated from 1932 2014 . in 1932 at the height of the great depression the bookstore was moved to a flagship location on 18th street and fifth avenue 17 which served as such until it closed in 2014 . the noble family retained ownership of an associated publishing business and barnes & noble opened a new publishing division in 1931 . 15 in 1940 the store was one of the first businesses to feature muzak ; it underwent a major renovation the following year . 18 that decade the company opened stores in brooklyn and chicago . 19 william barnes died in 1945 at the age of 78 and his son john wilcox barnes assumed full control . 19 the company underwent a significant expansion in the 1950s and 1960s opening an additional retail store on twenty third street in manhattan and shops near the city university of new york harvard and other northeast college campuses . 20 john barnes died in 1964 and the company was sold to the conglomerate amtel in 1966 . 21 barnes and noble corporate headquarters 122 122 124 fifth avenue between west 17th and 18th streets in the flatiron district neighborhood of manhattan new york city 5th avenue store sign 1970s edit the business was purchased in 1971 by leonard riggio for 1.2 million . 20 by then it had been badly mismanaged over the prior two years and consisted only of a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location the store at 105 fifth avenue . 20 in 1974 barnes & noble became the first bookstore to advertise on television and a year later the company became the first bookseller in america to discount books by selling the new york times best selling titles at 40 % off the publishers list price . 22 during the 1970s and 1980s barnes & noble opened smaller discount stores which were eventually phased out in favor of larger stores . they also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail order customers . these titles were primarily affordable reissues of out of print titles and selling them through mail order catalogs allowed barnes & noble to reach new customers nationwide . 22 in november 1974 in response to a question from a member of the studio audience the british twin brothers norris mcwhirter and ross mcwhirter who were editors of the british produced guinness book of records claimed on the bbc one television programme record breakers that the fifth avenue store of barnes and noble had overtaken that of london s foyles bookshop to become the world s biggest bookstore . 23 1980s 1990s edit barnes & noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s and in 1986 purchased the primarily shopping mall based b. dalton chain from dayton hudson for an estimated 275 million to 300 million . 24 the last b. dalton stores were slated to close in january 2010 . 25 in 1989 barnes and noble had purchased the 22 store chain bookstop . solveig robinson author of the book in society an introduction to print culture wrote that the purchase gave barnes and noble the necessary know how and infrastructure to create what in 1992 became the definitive bookselling superstore . 26 the acquisition of the 797 b. dalton bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer and by the end of fiscal year 1999 the second largest online bookseller in the united states . 25 b & n s critics claim that it has contributed to the decline of local and independent booksellers . 27 before barnes & noble created its web site it sold books directly to customers through mail order catalogs . it first began selling books online in the late 1980s in an early generation venue called trintex a joint venture between sears and ibm but the company s website was not launched until may 1997 . 28 according to the site it now carries over 2 million titles . 29 2000s edit in 2002 leonard riggio s brother stephen riggio was named ceo a position he held until 2010 . 30 the barnes & noble review an online literary site was launched in october 2007 . it featured book reviews columns and interview from critics and authors such as michael dirda john freeman a.c. grayling ezra klein paul lafarge mark sarvas dava sobel neal stephenson stephen king and greil marcus . 31 music critic robert christgau has also written essays for the site . 32 video games and related items were sold in the company s gamestop retail outlets from 1999 until late 2004 when the division was spun off by distributing its 59 % stake in gamestop to stakeholders of barnes & noble s making it an independent company . 33 2010s edit in march 2010 william lynch formerly the president of the company s website was appointed ceo . he is credited with helping launch the company s electronic book store and overseeing the introduction of its electronic book reader the nook . many observers saw his appointment as underscoring the importance of digital books to barnes & noble s future . steve riggio stayed on as vice chairman . 34 after the bankruptcy and closure of its chief competitor borders group in 2011 35 barnes & noble became the last remaining national bookstore chain in america . 6 7 this followed a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the american bookstore industry since the 1990s which also saw the demise of waldenbooks barnes & noble s own subsidiary b. dalton and crown books among others . barnes & noble s largest physical bookstore rival is now books a million which does not operate in the western us . barnes & noble also faces competition from general retailers especially from amazon.com and from regional and independent booksellers . on october 23 2012 the new york times reported that credit card information was stolen in 63 stores . 36 on july 8 2013 the company announced the resignation of william lynch as barnes & noble ceo and board member effective immediately . 37 on january 8 2014 it was announced that michael p. huseby would become the new ceo of barnes & noble . huseby had joined barnes & noble as chief financial officer in march 2012 and led the company s financial organization until his appointment as president in july 2013 . prior to joining barnes & noble he worked in the media communications industry most recently having served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of cablevision systems corporation . 38 on january 6 2014 barnes & noble closed its original flagship store at 105 fifth avenue . 39 on june 25 2014 it was announced that barnes & noble planned to spin off the nook media division into an independent publicly traded company . 40 in the summer of 2014 barnes & noble partnered with google shopping express in some u.s. cities to offer same day delivery for books and other products . in 2014 it also teamed up with samsung which manufactures b & n s nook tablet devices and also launched a print on demand service for aspiring authors . 41 on july 2 2015 ronald d. boire was named chief executive officer of barnes & noble effective september 2015 replacing huseby who went on to become executive chairman of barnes & noble education upon the completion of the spin off from barnes & noble on august 3 2015 . 42 43 boire was previously president & chief executive officer of sears canada inc. on april 29 2016 founder and long time chairman len riggio announced that he would retire in september 2016 . 44 on august 16 2016 barnes & noble announced boire s departure from the company and is currently searching for a new ceo . 45 meanwhile executive chairman and former barnes & noble ceo leonard riggio has postponed his retirement until a permanent successor is found . 46 publishing edit barnes & noble publishes some of the books it sells inexpensively reprinting non copyrighted titles or acquiring the u.s. or english language rights from another publisher . in addition