diff --git a/src/libprs500/__init__.py b/src/libprs500/__init__.py
index 3d6c38f012..cd2a3f1dae 100644
--- a/src/libprs500/__init__.py
+++ b/src/libprs500/__init__.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 ##    with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
 ##    51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
 ''' E-book management software'''
-__version__   = "0.3.50"
+__version__   = "0.3.51"
 __docformat__ = "epytext"
 __author__    = "Kovid Goyal <kovid@kovidgoyal.net>"
 __appname__   = 'libprs500'
diff --git a/src/libprs500/ebooks/lrf/meta.py b/src/libprs500/ebooks/lrf/meta.py
index d2d5c37445..283bc9a2e4 100644
--- a/src/libprs500/ebooks/lrf/meta.py
+++ b/src/libprs500/ebooks/lrf/meta.py
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ class xml_field(object):
                 elem.normalize() 
                 if elem.hasChildNodes(): 
                     return elem.firstChild.data.strip()
-        return ""
+        return ''
         
     def __set__(self, obj, val):
         if val == None:
@@ -381,10 +381,10 @@ class LRFMetaFile(object):
                     if candidate[-1:] == '\0':
                         candidate = candidate[:-1]
                     candidate = dom.parseString(candidate.encode('utf-8')).\
-                            toxml(encoding='utf-16')
+                            toxml(encoding='utf-16').strip()
                 else:
-                    candidate = candidate.encode('utf-16')
-                return candidate.strip()
+                    candidate = candidate.strip().encode('utf-16')
+                return candidate
             except zlib.error:
                 raise LRFException("Unable to decompress document meta information")