diff --git a/workers/app/common/zim.py b/workers/app/common/zim.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 9bad89d09..000000000
--- a/workers/app/common/zim.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,26 +0,0 @@
-import base64
-import pathlib
-from typing import Any, Dict
-
-from zimscraperlib.zim import Archive
-
-
-def get_zim_info(fpath: pathlib.Path) -> Dict[str, Any]:
-    zim = Archive(fpath)
-    payload = {
-        "id": str(zim.uuid),
-        "counter": zim.counters,
-        "article_count": zim.article_counter,
-        "media_count": zim.media_counter,
-        "size": fpath.stat().st_size,
-        "metadata": zim.metadata,
-    }
-    for size in zim.get_illustration_sizes():
-        payload["metadata"].update(
-            {
-                f"Illustration_{size}x{size}": base64.standard_b64encode(
-                    zim.get_illustration_item(size).content
-                ).decode("ASCII")
-            }
-        )
-    return payload
diff --git a/workers/app/task/worker.py b/workers/app/task/worker.py
index e7daea29d..1431f7a74 100644
--- a/workers/app/task/worker.py
+++ b/workers/app/task/worker.py
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 )
 from common.utils import format_key, format_size
 from common.worker import BaseWorker
-from common.zim import get_zim_info
+from task.zim import get_zim_info
 
 SLEEP_INTERVAL = 60  # nb of seconds to sleep before watching
 PENDING = "pending"
diff --git a/workers/app/task/zim.py b/workers/app/task/zim.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9a8606d91
--- /dev/null
+++ b/workers/app/task/zim.py
@@ -0,0 +1,121 @@
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import base64
+import io
+import pathlib
+from collections import namedtuple
+from typing import Any, Dict, Optional
+
+from libzim import Archive
+
+
+def get_zim_info(fpath: pathlib.Path) -> Dict[str, Any]:
+    zim = Archive(fpath)
+    payload = {
+        "id": str(zim.uuid),
+        "counter": counters(zim),
+        "article_count": zim.article_count,
+        "media_count": zim.media_count,
+        "size": fpath.stat().st_size,
+        "metadata": {
+            key: get_text_metadata(zim, key)
+            for key in zim.metadata_keys
+            if not key.startswith("Illustration_")
+        },
+    }
+    for size in zim.get_illustration_sizes():
+        payload["metadata"].update(
+            {
+                f"Illustration_{size}x{size}": base64.standard_b64encode(
+                    zim.get_illustration_item(size).content
+                ).decode("ASCII")
+            }
+        )
+    return payload
+
+
+# Code below is duplicated from python-scraperlib, in order to depend only on
+# python-libzim in the task manager, and not the whole python-scraperlib and all its
+# dependencies
+
+MimetypeAndCounter = namedtuple("MimetypeAndCounter", ["mimetype", "value"])
+CounterMap = Dict[
+    type(MimetypeAndCounter.mimetype), type(MimetypeAndCounter.value)  # pyright: ignore
+]
+
+
+def get_text_metadata(zim: Archive, name: str) -> str:
+    """Decoded value of a text metadata"""
+    return zim.get_metadata(name).decode("UTF-8")
+
+
+def getline(src: io.StringIO, delim: Optional[bool] = None) -> tuple[bool, str]:
+    """C++ stdlib getline() ~clone
+
+    Reads `src` until it finds `delim`.
+    returns whether src is EOF and the extracted string (delim excluded)"""
+    output = ""
+    if not delim:
+        return True, src.read()
+
+    char = src.read(1)
+    while char:
+        if char == delim:
+            break
+        output += char
+        char = src.read(1)
+    return char == "", output
+
+
+def counters(zim: Archive) -> dict[str, int]:
+    try:
+        return parseMimetypeCounter(get_text_metadata(zim, "Counter"))
+    except RuntimeError:  # pragma: no cover (no ZIM avail to test itl)
+        return {}  # pragma: no cover
+
+
+def readFullMimetypeAndCounterString(
+    src: io.StringIO,
+) -> tuple[bool, str]:
+    """read a single mimetype-and-counter string from source
+
+    Returns whether the source is EOF and the extracted string (or empty one)"""
+    params = ""
+    eof, mtcStr = getline(src, ";")  # pyright: ignore
+    if mtcStr.find("=") == -1:
+        while params.count("=") != 2:  # noqa: PLR2004
+            eof, params = getline(src, ";")  # pyright: ignore
+            if params.count("=") == 2:  # noqa: PLR2004
+                mtcStr += ";" + params
+            if eof:
+                break
+    return eof, mtcStr
+
+
+def parseASingleMimetypeCounter(string: str) -> MimetypeAndCounter:
+    """MimetypeAndCounter from a single mimetype-and-counter string"""
+    k: int = string.rfind("=")
+    if k != len(string) - 1:
+        mimeType = string[:k]
+        counter = string[k + 1 :]  # noqa: E203
+        try:
+            return MimetypeAndCounter(mimeType, int(counter))
+        except ValueError:
+            pass  # value is not castable to int
+    return MimetypeAndCounter("", 0)
+
+
+def parseMimetypeCounter(
+    counterData: str,
+) -> CounterMap:
+    """Mapping of MIME types with count for each from ZIM Counter metadata string"""
+    counters = {}
+    ss = io.StringIO(counterData)
+    eof = False
+    while not eof:
+        eof, mtcStr = readFullMimetypeAndCounterString(ss)
+        mtc = parseASingleMimetypeCounter(mtcStr)
+        if mtc.mimetype:
+            counters.update([mtc])
+    ss.close()
+    return counters
diff --git a/workers/task-Dockerfile b/workers/task-Dockerfile
index ba9055952..9d523b587 100644
--- a/workers/task-Dockerfile
+++ b/workers/task-Dockerfile
@@ -2,10 +2,6 @@ FROM python:3.12-slim-bookworm
 LABEL zimfarm=true
 LABEL org.opencontainers.image.source https://github.com/openzim/zimfarm
 
-# install libmagic for zimscraperlib
-RUN apt-get update -y \
-    && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libmagic1
-
 WORKDIR /usr/src
 
 COPY task-requirements.txt requirements.txt
diff --git a/workers/task-requirements.txt b/workers/task-requirements.txt
index a8b90f64e..fb7a482c9 100644
--- a/workers/task-requirements.txt
+++ b/workers/task-requirements.txt
@@ -5,5 +5,5 @@ humanfriendly==10.0
 PyJWT==2.8.0
 kiwixstorage==0.6
 ujson==5.9.0
-zimscraperlib==3.3.0
+libzim==3.4.0 
 paramiko==2.11.0