Nook launches updated version of its open source EPUBCheck tool for better way to evaluate EPUB files, ensure they adhere to industry standards

Kendall Sinclair

NEW YORK , October 8, 2013 (press release) – Updated Tool Highlights NOOK Media Digital Education's Commitment to Implementing Innovative New Standards Across the Industry

Barnes & Noble College, a subsidiary of NOOK Media LLC, a Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) Company, the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, announced today that its digital education team has made significant updates to the open source EPUBCheck tool, creating a new way to evaluate EPUB files to ensure they adhere to industry standards. Originally created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), EPUBCheck is a tool to validate and detect types of errors in IDPF EPUB files. The updates created by the NOOK Digital Education team make it more manageable and easier to facilitate the tool's integration into publishing workflows and workflow management systems.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to innovate in digital education, NOOK has added significant functionality to the EPUBCheck tool that will make it more powerful and manageable for the entire industry," said Steve Antoch, Senior Software Engineer at NOOK Media. Arwen Pond, Software Engineer at NOOK Media, adds, "The new features we added will help publishers create exceptional EPUB 3 content, while successfully implementing this new industry standard. This has taken a significant effort from our digital education development team."

"NOOK is one of the leading players in the digital education industry and the work they have done on the EPUBCheck tool is of great value to the industry as a whole," said Bill McCoy, Executive Director at IDPF. "The IDPF is dedicated to the development and promotion of electronic publishing and content consumption and we are grateful to have innovative teams like the one at NOOK to help the industry move forward."

New features of the tool include tests for content accessibility markup, CSS issues that might affect presentation quality, and tests for specific script usage patterns that require security consideration that will help publishers create exceptional, accessible, EPUB 3 content. In addition, an output option was added to EPUBCheck that makes all of the program's output available as data which can be easily consumed by other programs, making the tool more easily integrated into automated document processing workflows.

The updated EPUBCheck tool is available now and can be found at http://validator.idpf.org/. For more information on the International Digital Publishing Forum and the EPUB standard visit www.idpf.org. NOOK Media comprises the Digital and College businesses of Barnes & Noble and is a leader in the emerging digital reading and digital education markets focused on advancing world-class digital reading experiences to its customers. For more information visit NOOK.com.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is a Fortune 500 company and the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The company operates 674 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). Its NOOK Media LLC subsidiary is a leader in the emerging digital reading and digital education markets. The NOOK digital business offers award-winning NOOK(R) products and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store(R) (www.nook.com), while Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC operates 692 bookstores serving over 4.6 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble is proud to be named a J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Customer Service Champion and is only one of 50 U.S. companies so named. Barnes & Noble.com is ranked the number one online retailer in customer satisfaction in the book, music and video category and a Top 10 online retailer overall in customer satisfaction according to ForeSee E-Retail Satisfaction Index (Spring Top 100 Edition).

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

NOOK(R) , NOOK Store(R) , NOOK Video(TM) , and NOOK Video Apps(TM) are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.

Follow Barnes & Noble on Twitter (www.bn.com/twitter), Facebook (www.facebook.com/barnesandnoble) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/barnesandnoble).

About NOOK Media LLC

NOOK reading and entertainment products make it easy to Read What You Love, Anywhere You Like(TM) with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to the expansive NOOK Store(R) of more than 3 million (US) and 2.5 million (UK) digital books, plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps(TM) and NOOK Video Apps(TM) , available at www.nook.com/freenookapps. NOOK owners receive Always Free NOOK Support in any of Barnes & Noble's nearly 700 bookstores. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.nook.com, as well as leading retailers including Best Buy, Walmart, Target and many others. NOOK products are available in the United Kingdom at leading retailers; NOOK content can be purchased at www.nook.co.uk.

For more information on NOOK, follow us on www.twitter.com/nookBN or www.twitter.com/nook_UK and www.facebook.com/nook or www.facebook.com/nookGB.

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