diff --git a/langchain/__init__.py b/langchain/__init__.py
index b185ca520e..7ab3d1cac2 100644
--- a/langchain/__init__.py
+++ b/langchain/__init__.py
@@ -55,7 +55,11 @@ from langchain.utilities.wikipedia import WikipediaAPIWrapper
 from langchain.utilities.wolfram_alpha import WolframAlphaAPIWrapper
 from langchain.vectorstores import FAISS, ElasticVectorSearch
 
-__version__ = metadata.version(__package__)
+try:
+    __version__ = metadata.version(__package__)
+except metadata.PackageNotFoundError:
+    # Case where package metadata is not available.
+    __version__ = ""
 del metadata  # optional, avoids polluting the results of dir(__package__)
 
 verbose: bool = False