diff --git a/trafilatura/downloads.py b/trafilatura/downloads.py
index ad59b64c..0caca890 100644
--- a/trafilatura/downloads.py
+++ b/trafilatura/downloads.py
@@ -28,14 +28,19 @@
 from courlan import UrlStore
 from courlan.network import redirection_test
 
-from importlib.metadata import version
-PKG_VERSION = version("trafilatura")
+try:  # Python 3.8+
+    from importlib.metadata import version
+except ImportError:
+    from importlib_metadata import version
+
 
 from .settings import DEFAULT_CONFIG
 from .utils import (URL_BLACKLIST_REGEX, decode_response, make_chunks,
                     uniquify_list)
 
 
+PKG_VERSION = version("trafilatura")
+
 NUM_CONNECTIONS = 50
 MAX_REDIRECTS = 2
 
diff --git a/trafilatura/xml.py b/trafilatura/xml.py
index c02912b9..de9eb78a 100644
--- a/trafilatura/xml.py
+++ b/trafilatura/xml.py
@@ -14,8 +14,10 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 from pickle import load as load_pickle
 
-from importlib.metadata import version
-PKG_VERSION = version("trafilatura")
+try:  # Python 3.8+
+    from importlib.metadata import version
+except ImportError:
+    from importlib_metadata import version
 
 from lxml.etree import (Element, RelaxNG, SubElement, XMLParser, fromstring,
                         tostring)
@@ -26,6 +28,8 @@
 
 
 LOGGER = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+PKG_VERSION = version("trafilatura")
+ 
 # validation
 TEI_SCHEMA = str(Path(__file__).parent / 'data/tei-schema-pickle.lzma')
 TEI_VALID_TAGS = {'ab', 'body', 'cell', 'code', 'del', 'div', 'graphic', 'head', 'hi', \