Barnes & Noble Earns Perfect Score on 2016 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) for Eighth Year in a Row

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, proudly announced today that it has earned a perfect score of 100 percent for the eighth year in a row in the 2016 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Barnes & Noble joins the ranks of 391 major U.S. businesses which annually receive top marks for their treatment of LGBT employees and customers.

“At Barnes & Noble, our mission is to help both our customers and booksellers reach their aspirations, while being a credit to the communities we serve. We strive to do so by creating a rewarding and accepting environment in all of our stores,” said Michelle Smith, Vice President of Human Resources for Barnes & Noble, Inc. “It is an honor to again be recognized by the Humans Rights Campaign Foundation for our dedication to recruiting diverse talent and providing them with competitive benefits. We are proud to support and reflect the diversity of the communities we serve in our bookstores nationwide.”

The 2016 CEI rated 1,024 businesses in the report, which evaluates LGBT-related policies and practices including non-discrimination workplace protections, domestic partner benefits, transgender-inclusive health care benefits, competency programs, and public engagement with the LGBT community. Barnes & Noble’s efforts in satisfying all of the CEI’s criteria results in a 100 percent ranking and the designation as a Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality.

For more information on the 2016 Corporate Equality Index, or to download a free copy of the report, visit www.hrc.org/cei.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is a Fortune 500 company, the nation’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 647 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store features more than 4 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com) and UK (www.nook.co.uk), plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS® and Windows®.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company's corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

Barnes & Noble®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers® and Barnes & Noble.com® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK® and the NOOK logos are trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.

For more information on Barnes & Noble, follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, and like us on Facebook. For more information on NOOK, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151118005209/en/