The aim of this study is to deepen the knowledge of how the rhetoric surrounding social exclusion, digital exclusion and prioritized groups are expressed in the strategic documents, library plans, written by and for ten public libraries in Sweden. This since a necessity for the public library to think in social terms has been expressed. We call the concept that sums up these three parts Vulnerability and a deputy subject tied to this concept we call “Subject in vulnerability”. The aim of this study is furthermore to investigate the language in relation to our custom term Vulnerability. Our intention is in this way to map the rhetoric in the library plans concerning the role of the library in relation to the users and Vulnerability. The theoretical and methodological framework is mainly Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Theory of Discourse. As an additional theory a norm-critical approach is used. The questions asked are: - In what different ways are Users in vulnerability expressed in library plans? What social roles are assigned to these users in policy documents? How does the library’s role emerge through the library plans in relation to Users in vulnerability? 

Five discourses are found that are related to the following themes: Everybody, Digital exclusion, Social factors, Abilities of individuals, and Needs and the library’s challenges. From these were extracted six subjects positions of which one is depicted/described in order to make clear another one.    

The discussion presents the conflicts among the subject positions in the discourses, which reveals an unstabled “Subject in vulnerability” within the Vulnerability disourses. The public library clearly sees it as its mission to work for inclusion and to prevent exclusion, but exactly what role they need to play in the social mission is unclear, through the looking glass of the Vulnerability discourses.