diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 8d84c0cd..7e9dd550 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -132,8 +132,7 @@ AS_IF([test "x$PKG_CONFIG" = "xno"],[
 ])
 
 # glib2?
-# we pick some late-2012 version
-PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GLIB,glib-2.0 >= 2.32 gobject-2.0 gio-2.0)
+PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GLIB,glib-2.0 >= 2.38 gobject-2.0 gio-2.0)
 AC_SUBST(GLIB_CFLAGS)
 AC_SUBST(GLIB_LIBS)
 glib_version="`$PKG_CONFIG --modversion glib-2.0`"
diff --git a/lib/mu-index.h b/lib/mu-index.h
index 0769472a..bbce5360 100644
--- a/lib/mu-index.h
+++ b/lib/mu-index.h
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /* -*-mode: c; tab-width: 8; indent-tabs-mode: t; c-basic-offset: 8 -*-*/
 
 /*
-** Copyright (C) 2008-2013 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
+** Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
 **
 ** This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 ** it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -42,10 +42,10 @@ struct _MuIndexStats {
 typedef struct _MuIndexStats MuIndexStats;
 
 /**
- * create a new MuIndex instance. NOTE(1): the database does not have
+ * create a new MuIndex instance. NOTE: the database does not have
  * to exist yet, but the directory must already exist; NOTE(2): before
  * doing anything with the returned Index object, make sure you haved
- * called g_type_init, and mu_msg_init somewhere in your code.
+ * called mu_msg_init somewhere in your code.
  *
  * @param store a writable MuStore object
  * @param err to receive error or NULL; there are only errors when this
diff --git a/lib/mu-runtime.c b/lib/mu-runtime.c
index a8e78dd4..0ddee988 100644
--- a/lib/mu-runtime.c
+++ b/lib/mu-runtime.c
@@ -82,10 +82,6 @@ mu_runtime_init (const char* muhome_arg, const char *name)
 
 	setlocale (LC_ALL, "");
 
-#ifndef GLIB_VERSION_2_36
-	g_type_init ();
-#endif /*GLIB_VERSION_2_36*/
-
 	if (muhome_arg)
 		muhome = g_strdup (muhome_arg);
 	else
diff --git a/mu/mu.cc b/mu/mu.cc
index 0934f2e4..9d442891 100644
--- a/mu/mu.cc
+++ b/mu/mu.cc
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /* -*-mode: c++; tab-width: 8; indent-tabs-mode: t; c-basic-offset: 8-*- */
 
 /*
-** Copyright (C) 2008-2015 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
+** Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
 **
 ** This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 ** under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ show_version (void)
 {
 	const char* blurb =
 		"mu (mail indexer/searcher) version " VERSION "\n"
-		"Copyright (C) 2008-2018 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema\n"
+		"Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema\n"
 		"License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later "
 		"<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.\n"
 		"This is free software: you are free to change "
@@ -88,16 +88,12 @@ handle_error (MuConfig *conf, MuError merr, GError **err)
 int
 main (int argc, char *argv[])
 {
-	GError *err;
-	MuError rv;
-	MuConfig *conf;
+	GError		*err;
+	MuError		 rv;
+	MuConfig	*conf;
 
 	setlocale (LC_ALL, "");
 
-#ifndef GLIB_VERSION_2_36
-	g_type_init ();
-#endif /*GLIB_VERSION_2_36*/
-
 	err = NULL;
 	rv  = MU_OK;