diff --git a/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml
index c93809f6..cb0944f5 100644
--- a/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml
+++ b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ body:
     attributes:
       label: Python Version
       options:
-        - "3.8"
+        - "3.8" (not supported)
         - "3.9"
         - "3.10"
         - "3.11"
diff --git a/.github/workflows/auto-publish.yml b/.github/workflows/auto-publish.yml
index dd44b7fb..74860b92 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/auto-publish.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/auto-publish.yml
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Set up Python
         uses: actions/setup-python@v2
         with:
-          python-version: "3.8"
+          python-version: "3.9"
       - name: Install dependencies
         run: |
           python -m pip install --upgrade pip
diff --git a/.github/workflows/dev-testing.yaml b/.github/workflows/dev-testing.yaml
index 72bf6e0d..65d595ff 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/dev-testing.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/dev-testing.yaml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        python-version: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
+        python-version: ["3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
       - run: git fetch --prune --unshallow --tags
diff --git a/.github/workflows/run-tests.yml b/.github/workflows/run-tests.yml
index 33ebeb59..5805d143 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/run-tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/run-tests.yml
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        python-version: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
+        python-version: [3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
         os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest, macos-13] # macos-13 is the latest version of macOS with Intel chip
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
diff --git a/src/roiextractors/__init__.py b/src/roiextractors/__init__.py
index a708f1d2..1f7ec5be 100644
--- a/src/roiextractors/__init__.py
+++ b/src/roiextractors/__init__.py
@@ -1,16 +1,8 @@
 """Python-based module for extracting from, converting between, and handling recorded and optical imaging data from several file formats."""
 
-# Keeping __version__ accessible only to maintain backcompatability.
-# Modern approach (Python >= 3.8) is to use importlib
-try:
-    from importlib.metadata import version
-
-    __version__ = version("roiextractors")
-except ModuleNotFoundError:  # Remove the except clause when minimal supported version becomes 3.8
-    from pkg_resources import get_distribution
-
-    __version__ = get_distribution("roiextractors").version
+from importlib.metadata import version
 
+__version__ = version("roiextractors")
 
 from .example_datasets import toy_example
 from .extraction_tools import show_video