Having already cornered the market in sales of print books, e-books, and numerous formats as yet uninvented, probably, rumours abound this week that Amazon is currently sitting in a car with tinted windows outside the houses of libraries the world over, screwing on a silencer, and waiting patiently for a clear shot. By which I mean it’s maybe, possibly, potentially putting together plans to launch an e-book lending system.

This is, of course, very early stages, and nothing’s been confirmed or announced as yet; but even just the knowledge that this idea has been floated by someone, somewhere, now makes it seem like an inevitable development at some point down the line. Right? I mean, even if Amazon hadn’t already thought of making this happen, it’s definitely now been brought to their attention that there still exists one method through which people can get a hold of books from which Amazon doesn’t make any money.

Which doesn’t really make sense, or at least wouldn’t if human beings were always completely rational, and stopped to think about things, and weren’t prone to being distracted by shiny, new and/or – OH LOOK, A FIREWORK! – hard to ignore goods and services. Libraries already serve this purpose. They do it ostensibly free of charge (yeah yeah, taxes and that, but anyone who seriously thinks their taxes would be lower if it wasn’t for those pesky libraries is exactly the kind of person who most needs libraries and no doubt most irregularly attends them). They are one of the great achievements of western civilisation. Some even offer e-book rental, or ‘borrowing’, to give it its more commonly known, less passive aggressive title.

So why would anyone bother paying to rent a book from Amazon at all? The early comparisons for the speculative service are the likes of LoveFilm (which Amazon now owns – layers upon layers, etc.), which suggests that the range of available titles is a factor: just as LoveFilm can stock infintely more DVDs than the average Blockbuster could ever hope to contain, so, theoretically, could Amazon trounce the physical limitations of your local library by carrying every book yet digitised (although if it is a solely digital endeavour, then theoretically so could libraries who already offer e-books. Honestly, this is starting to make my head hurt).

But – and this is a big, ‘yo mama’-joke sized but – it needs to secure the rights to do so from publishers. Libraries are a public service. They’re not profiting from the books they buy then subsequently lend, so it’s not like they’re holding out on publishers who could stand to make more money off of them. Amazon would, most definitely, be making money, and holding out as much as they legally could on publishers who could stand to make more money off of them.

So, what have we learned? Amazon might be launching a book rental service. It might be a threat to libraries. It might make no sense in a world where libraries still exist. But until it’s officially announced, it also might not be happening at all. I’m going to lie down in a darkened room for a while.