Barnes & Noble tried to keep up with the technological shift, but the company’s earnings were perforated by a $177 million loss from its Nook division, and that news took out William Lynch Jr., the chief executive, and threw a deep scare into publishers.

In my view, Barnes & Noble is a company that did the right thing, and got clobbered anyway. When most media companies get into the device business, what pops out is clunky and useless, but the Nook is an excellent reading device that drew critical praise and, initially, buyers. At a time when legacy media companies are derided for letting the future overtake them, Barnes & Noble aggressively innovated.

Amazon, however, not only had the Kindle, but consumer relationships, inventory and technical know-how that could not be overcome. And as consumers moved from e-readers to tablets to take advantage of multiple functions like video, the Nook ended up in a corner. During last Christmas season, Nook sales were down 12.6 percent compared with the period a year earlier.

But the current spate of bad news may mask underlying strengths. As Bloomberg News pointed out on Thursday, Leonard Riggio, the 72-year-old architect of Barnes & Noble’s national buildup, is still considering buying the physical stores and taking them private, in part because the fundamentals of that business are still solid, if not spectacular. In the fiscal year that ended in April, the retail stores and Web site generated earnings of $374.2 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a 16 percent increase, even as sales declined almost 6 percent.

One of the parties that might want to root for Barnes & Noble is Amazon. Sales of e-books fell immediately after Borders went under, leading some to suggest that reduced opportunity to browse the physical artifact resulted in less online buying.

Having a bookstore in your neighborhood, as opposed to one that is bookmarked on your browser, is an invitation. Not long ago, I was walking by an airport bookstore and thought, “What if this was the only place to buy books?” Similar to Hollywood, only the blockbusters would get shelf space.