With talk of a premium library on the cards for the Amazon Kindle, the e-retail giant has quietly gone live with a mass local library scheme - making Kindle book lending available at more than 11,000 local libraries in the United States.

There were whispers that Kindlers in Seattle, the city where Amazon is based, were seeing Kindle library references and now the company has come clean with the details of the project.

"Starting today, millions of Kindle customers can borrow Kindle books from their local libraries," said Jay Marine, director of Amazon Kindle.

"Libraries are a critical part of our communities and we're excited to be making Kindle books available at more than 11,000 local libraries around the country.

"We're even doing a little extra here - normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we're fixing this by extending our Whispersync technology to library books, so your notes, highlights and bookmarks are always backed up and available the next time you check out the book or if you decide to buy the book."

The service promotes local libraries as you have to use a participating library's website to find the title that you want to borrow. Once "Send to Kindle" is selected, users will be redirected to Amazon.com to login to their Kindle account and the book will be delivered to the device they select via Wi-Fi.

"This is a welcome day for Kindle users in libraries everywhere and especially our Kindle users here at The Seattle Public Library," said Marcellus Turner, city librarian for The Seattle Public Library. "We're thrilled that Amazon is offering such a new approach to library ebooks that enhances the reader experience."

No word on whether the scheme will hit the UK - we'll do some digging and keep you posted.