This position paper discusses the concept of meta-services—services that bridge the gap between the existing publicservices and the latent citizen needs—as a critical element inthe transition from transactional to relational public services.The paper is based on the preliminary findings of an ongoingresearch project, Civic Agency in Public E-service Innovation(CAPE). The project explores new forms of civic agency inpublic sector service development in collaboration with publiclibraries and citizens in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden