Blackboard Integration Makes Barnes & Noble Digital Content Available in Blackboard Learn

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) and Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and leading operator of college bookstores, today announced the general availability of an integration that lets college students access and use interactive e-textbooks and other digital content from Barnes & Noble's vast catalog directly within Blackboard Learn™, the leading Web based teaching and learning platform.

With the integration, students can access and purchase content from Barnes & Noble's vast catalog of over 1 million titles, including e-books, e-textbooks, relevant study aids, test prep guides, periodicals, and hundreds of thousands of trade and professional titles, directly within the online course environment.

This integration easily connects faculty and students to NOOKstudy, the free e-reader and study application from Barnes & Noble, enabling them to navigate through digital content and assignments to make their studying efforts more efficient and effective. It streamlines the ability of faculty to assign e-textbooks and digital course content that students can access and purchase.  In addition, faculty can assign specific readings within assigned materials pointing to the exact location where they are available in the NOOKstudy environment. Students can go straight from Blackboard Learn to the assignment and begin reading and studying.

"The developers definitely took everything that we said to heart, and I've even seen little pieces that I've suggested go into it," Alex Filosa, a student at Fordham University. "The note taking, the highlighting, it's very personalized. It's like me; I might have different colors for different things. I think NOOKstudy is going to be a great time saver."

With NOOKstudy students have access to multiple pieces of online course material which they can highlight, tag, take notes and customize, helping them save time, stay organized and study smarter.

"This integration is part of our overall effort to make it easier for educators and students to find and share content," said Matt Small, Blackboard's Chief Business Officer. "The partnership helps remove limitations on the number of titles you can make available and how you can access them."

"Integrating NOOKstudy and digital content into the Blackboard Learn experience is a huge step forward in enabling easy access to digital content for students," said Tracey Weber, Executive Vice President, Textbooks and Digital Education at Barnes & Noble.com. "This will add another layer of efficiency and effectiveness to the NOOKstudy experience for students and faculty."

The NOOKstudy Blackboard Building Block™ is free to all higher education institutions in North America running Blackboard Learn Release 9 or Release 9.1. Support for Release 8 is expected to be available by the end of October.

For more information about Blackboard Learn, please visit http://blackboard.com/Teaching-Learning/Learn-Platform.aspx. For more information about NOOKstudy by Barnes & Noble, please visit http://www.NOOKstudy.com.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 717 bookstores in 50 states.  Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 633 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States.  Barnes & Noble is the nation's top bookseller brand for the seventh 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®.  Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than one million titles in its eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks).  Through Barnes & Noble's NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.

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

NOOK™, NOOKstudy™, LendMe™, Read In Store™, More In Store™ and Lifetime Library™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.

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Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10-Q filed on August 9, 2010 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of October 19, 2010. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to October 19, 2010.

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.