Borders and Crown Books have all but vanished from the retail landscape so if you want to actually hold and read this thing called a “book” that’s not on an electronic device, you’ll have to go to Barnes & Noble.  Even they have struggled to compete with the mighty Amazon, their Nook bookreader hasn’t sold nearly as well as the Kindle from Amazon.  Looks like they’re branching out into other categories (toys, for instance) to keep their brick-and-mortars solvent, and I guess there will always be people who want to grab a coffee and snuggle up to their favorite hardcover book.  Interesting that e-book sales have declined this year, so perhaps a revolution is occurring.

No matter how affordable and convenient e-book readers have become, there’s still nothing quite like strolling through the aisles of a well-stocked bookstore and flipping pages.

If that’s your idea of a solid afternoon, you’re not alone. Despite panic over digital sales being the demise of musty-smelling books, e-sales have declined 10 percent this year and publishers are increasing warehouse space to make room for tangible titles.

That’s excellent news for Barnes & Noble, the most recognizable brick and mortar bookseller: the company has stores in every state, selling 203 million titles every year. Here are some margin notes on their past, present, and future:

1. THEY STARTED WITH SCHOOL BOOKS.

Charles Montgomery Barnes decided to open a bookstore in Wheaton, Illinois in 1873. A nearby college and public school created demand for textbooks, which could be easily restocked thanks to freshly-laid railroads. Barnes’ son, William, took over in 1902 before moving to New York City in 1917 and partnering with fellow bookseller Gilbert Clifford Noble. By 1932, their flagship Barnes & Noble store on Fifth Avenue was selling books of all kinds, though in a somewhat peculiar manner.

2. THEY PIONEERED THE USE OF “BOOK-A-TERIAS.”

Long before the McDonald brothers imagined an assembly line for hamburgers, Barnes and Noble used their New York store to experiment with a revolutionary new layout. Customers in the 1940s would approach an employee who filled out a sales slip; another clerk would package the book; a third would handle the money to complete the transaction. While expedient, the cafeteria-like flow and awkward division of labor never caught on.

3. THEY WERE ONE OF THE FIRST STORES TO PIPE IN MUZAK.

Muzak, the branded term for the serene instrumental sounds heard in retail outlets, was started in the 1920s by the Wired Radio Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Purporting to have scientifically-arranged scores to maximize the soothed moods of consumers, the business moved to New York in 1936. Barnes & Noble became an early adopter in 1940, installing an elaborate speaker system that offered music, sports updates, and news. The tunes were also meant to offset employee fatigue by playing faster beats at regular intervals.

4. A COLLEGE DROPOUT WOUND UP BUYING THEM OUT.

By the 1960s, Barnes & Noble had outlived its namesakes and began to entertain offers from buyers. Leonard Riggio was a part-time college student at New York University who worked at the campus bookstore and was frustrated to discover he wouldn’t be allowed to oversee its operation. He dropped out and opened a competing store, the Student Book Exchange, in Greenwich Village in 1965. The business grew so successful that he was able to purchaseBarnes & Noble’s flagship (and only) store in 1971 for $1.2 million.   

5. THEY SOLD BOOKS TO PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T WANT TO READ THEM.

Not that they couldn’t read—they just preferred not to. When Riggio opened an 80,000square foot annex near his Fifth Avenue location in 1975, closeout books were sometimes sold by the pound. This generic approach filled a need for customers who wanted books to fill shelf space in their homes, effectively making them a decorative item. Buyers who loaded up were even granted use of grocery-style shopping carts.

6. THE STORE WANTED PEOPLE TO LOITER.

7. THEY GOT ONLINE LONG BEFORE AMAZON.

Blood was drawn early and often when Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com vied for e-commerce dominance in the late 1990s: the latter even sued the former for claiming to be “Earth’s biggest bookstore.” While Amazon got the brunt of compliments for their pioneering Internet venture, they weren’t first out of the gate. In the 1980s, Barnes & Noble tested the viability of selling books via an online service called Trintex. An electronic shopping interfacefunded by IBM and Sears, Trintex worked on personal computers and allowed subscribers to shop online. The service later became known as Prodigy.  

8. THEY WERE THE FIRST BOOKSTORE TO ADVERTISE ON TV.

In 1974, the bookstore hired ad agency Geers, DuBois to produce television spots for the New York market, a first for the industry. Their tag line—“Of course, of course”—became a minor sensation in its time. Because the brand was still growing, however, Barnes & Noble wasn’t able to be billed for a lot of money. When Riggio acquired the B. Dalton chain in 1987, he turned over their substantial $9 million advertising account to the agency as a way of rewarding them for their work.

9. THEY TURNED DOWN TOM HANKS.

In Hanks’ 1998 film You’ve Got Mail, an employee of a major bookstore chain falls in love with an independent proprietor (Meg Ryan) whose store he happens to be pushing out of business. Director Nora Ephron wanted to use Barnes & Noble as the monolithic company but despite the high profile product placement, Riggio turned her down. The plot may have hit too close too home: in 1996, the mega-store’s presence smothered the smaller Shakespeare and Company shop on the Upper West Side.

10. YOU CAN READ ANY NOOK E-BOOK FOR FREE. (JUST NOT FOR LONG.)

While relaxing in stores with a book and cappuccino was previously an analog experience, the company’s Nook e-reader offers an interesting twist: in-store shoppers can read any book available on the format, for free, for up to one hour per day to assess their interest.  

11. THEY WANT TO SELL YOU TOYS.

Go into any Barnes & Noble and you’re likely to see an elaborate display of toys—everything from action figures to LEGO sets. With actual toy stores dwindling in number, the bookseller believes it can steal some of that market share by becoming a destination for plastic trinkets. Sales of playthings rose 20 percent in 2014, an increase that company retail group head Mitchell Klipper believes is due to a familial atmosphere. “You don’t see anybody going to Bed, Bath & Beyond curling up with a blender,” he told Bloomberg.

12. THEY USED TO HAVE A STORE INSIDE AN OLD MOVIE PALACE.

13. THEY BANNED COMIC BOOKS.

Irate that DC Comics parent company Warner Bros. made a series of comic book collections available exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle device, Barnes & Noble pulled more than 100 DC titles from their inventory in 2011. Writer Neil Gaiman observed that the move basically gave Amazon the print exclusive to those titles, as well.

14.  THEY’RE COUNTING ON PLASTIC BAGS.