From KUOW, the Seattle area NPR station, on Tuesday May 20, 2025:
Patricia Murphy and Katie Campbell reported Tuesday afternoon:
After more than 100 years in business as an independent bookstore, the University Book Store in Seattle’s U District will soon be home to Barnes & Noble.
The bookseller, which has about 600 stores across the U.S., has plans to open another location in the University Book Store space next month.
The news was revealed in a job posting on the Barnes & Noble website. The link navigates to a web page showing a Barnes & Noble location slated for June at 4326 University Way NE. That’s University Book Store’s current address.
You can read the full article here.
University Book Store, the oldest independent bookstore in Seattle and one of the largest independent bookstores on the west coast, recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. We posted a history of the store for its 120th anniversary in January 2020.
You can explore more University Book Store content by following the University Book Store tag on our site. The store has been a beloved fixture in the independent bookstore world.
A similar takeover by Barnes & Noble of Denver indie Tattered Cover happened in 2024. Harvard University’s bookstore, the Harvard Coop, began a relationship with Barnes & Noble in 1995; a renovation in 2021 was decried in an editorial in the Boston Globe as “Harvard Coop: From storied bookstore to souvenir stand.”
