diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS.txt b/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
index 45836e7f..d09931e3 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
@@ -17,5 +17,8 @@
   OpenCV functions and better OSX library loader
 
 - Ralf Gommers
-  Image IO, color spaces and plots in documentation
+  Image IO, color spaces, plots in documentation, cleaner API docs
+
+- Helge Reikeras
+  Logic around API docs generation
 
diff --git a/doc/tools/build_modref_templates.py b/doc/tools/build_modref_templates.py
index ffd0d933..cf24da63 100644
--- a/doc/tools/build_modref_templates.py
+++ b/doc/tools/build_modref_templates.py
@@ -2,14 +2,51 @@
 """Script to auto-generate our API docs.
 """
 # stdlib imports
-import os
+import os, sys
 
 # local imports
 from apigen import ApiDocWriter
 
+# version comparison
+from distutils.version import LooseVersion as V
+
 #*****************************************************************************
+
+def abort(error):
+    print '*WARNING* API documentation not generated: %s'%error
+    exit()
+
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     package = 'scikits.image'
+
+    # Check that the 'image' package is available. If not, the API
+    # documentation is not (re)generated and existing API documentation
+    # sources will be used.
+
+    try:
+        __import__(package)
+    except ImportError, e:
+        abort("Can not import scikits.image")
+
+    module = sys.modules[package]
+
+    # Check that the source version is equal to the installed
+    # version. If the versions mismatch the API documentation sources
+    # are not (re)generated. This avoids automatic generation of documentation
+    # for older or newer versions if such versions are installed on the system.
+
+    installed_version = V(module.version.version)
+
+    setup_lines = open('../setup.py').readlines()
+    version = 'vUndefined'
+    for l in setup_lines:
+        if l.startswith('VERSION'):
+            source_version = V(l.split("'")[1])
+            break
+
+    if source_version != installed_version:
+        abort("Installed version does not match source version")
+
     outdir = 'source/api'
     docwriter = ApiDocWriter(package)
     docwriter.package_skip_patterns += [r'\.fixes$',