I am quite happy to use OO much of the time, however at this point I was trying to be minimally syntactically invasive. By this i mean I'd like to be able for other developers using my library to be able to go from this:

open(FILE,"foo.txt") or die "couldn't open file";
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to this:

use csLogs::Error;

open(FILE,"foo.txt") or csDie(...);
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The use of the error module is supposed to be as far away from the spotlight as possible, so I am looking to keep things as transparent to the programmers as possible

That sounds fine; particularly after seeing your intended interface I withdraw all thoughts about using an OO approach. :) One shouldn't have to instantiate an object just to die.

Anyway, though, would you mind posting some of your code? Is it possible that you have your functions in @EXPORT_OK and that you're not importing them explicitly? Just an idea.

I'll see what I can do about extracting what I think are the relevant bits :)

here is the gist of csLogs::Error.pm

package Error;

use Exporter ();
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw( csWarn csDie );

use lib 'f:/projects/site/bin/config/';

use strict;
use utf8;

use csLogsConfig;

#==================================================
# Replacements for User-called warn and die

#--------------------------------------------------
# to be used instead of warn() in application code
sub csWarn
{ 
   takes error class/severity and diagnostics info as parameters

   .
   .
   .
}

#--------------------------------------------------
# to be used instead of die() in application code
sub csDie
{
   very similar to csWarn, except that it exit()'s on completion

   .
   .
   .
}

#==================================================
# Private Functions

 .
 .
 .

#==================================================
#Overload SIGWARN and SIGDIE

BEGIN
{
    sub csWarnHandle
    {
        much like csWarn except with default parameters
    }

    sub csDieHandle
    {
        much like csDie except with default parameters
    }

    $SIG{__WARN__} = \&csWarnHandle;
    $SIG{__DIE__} = \&csDieHandle;
}

#----
1;
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here is pieces of csDB, which is a wrapper for the DBI

package csDB;

use Exporter ();
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(QueryDB $dbh);

use lib 'f:/projects/site/bin/config/';

use strict;
use DBI;

use csConfig;
use csLogs::Error;

our $dbh;

#=====================================================================
+=====================================
# Database Connection

BEGIN {
    $dbh = DBI->connect(csDBAuth()) or
    csDie( class=>csErrorClass('SERVER_DATABASE'),severity=>csErrorSca
+le('CRITICAL'),
           message=>'Could not connect to database server',
           debug=>$DBI::errstr
         );
}

END {
    $dbh->disconnect();
}
#=====================================================================
+=====================================
sub QueryDB
{
  $dbh->{RaiseError}=0;
  $dbh->{PrintError}=0;
  my $qstring = $_[0];

  my $dbquery= $dbh->prepare("$qstring") or
    csDie( class=>csErrorClass('CODE_DATABASE'),severity=>csErrorScale
+('SEVERE'),
         message=>'Database Query Preparation Error',
         debug=>$DBI::errstr
       );

  $dbquery->execute or
    csDie( class=>csErrorClass('CODE_DATABASE'),severity=>csErrorScale
+('SEVERE'),
         message=>'Database Query Execution Error',
         debug=>$DBI::errstr
       );

  $dbh->{RaiseError}=1;
  $dbh->{PrintError}=1;
  return ($dbquery);
}

#=====================================================================
+=====================================
other handy functions
.
.
.
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and finally the script that i was testing upon discovering this issue, csErrorLog_Parser

use lib 'f:/projects/site/bin/config/';

use strict;
use utf8;

use csConfig;
use csLogsConfig;

use csLogs::Error;
use csLogs::Event;
use csDB;

if (-f &csErrorLog)
# file exists and needs to be processed
{
    my $tmp_logfile = csPath('logs').'/errors'.time().'.log';
    my $LOG = undef;

    #---------------------------------
    # renaming the file assures that the processing
    # this script does doesn't interfere with normal logging.

    rename(&csErrorLog,$tmp_logfile) or csDie( class=>csErrorClass('CO
+DE_FILE_IO'),severity=>csErrorScale('MODERATE'),
                                            message=>'Error Log Parser
+ could not rename log to a temporary file.',
                                            debug=>"original filename:
+ '".&csErrorLog."'\nnew filename: '$tmp_logfile'"
                                          );

    open($LOG,$tmp_logfile) or csDie( class=>csErrorClass('CODE_FILE_I
+O'),severity=>csErrorScale('MODERATE'),
                                            message=>'Error Log Parser
+ could not open the renamed log file.',
                                            debug=>"filename: '$tmp_lo
+gfile'"
                                          );

    #---------------------------------
    # process the entries
    my $entries = process_errorlog($LOG);

    Event::NoteEvent( class=>csEventClass('TOOL_ACTION'),importance=>c
+sEventScale('LOW'),
               message=>'Error Log Parser successfully processed the e
+rror log',
               info=>"$entries log entries processed from '".&csErrorL
+og."'"
             );

    #---------------------------------
    # with processing completed dispose of the temp log file.
    close($LOG);
    unlink($tmp_logfile) or csDie( class=>csErrorClass('CODE_FILE_IO')
+,severity=>csErrorScale('MODERATE'),
                                            message=>'Error Log Parser
+ could remove the renamed log file.',
                                            debug=>"filename: '$tmp_lo
+gfile'"
                                          );

}
else
# file doesn't exist and no processing was necessary
{
    Event::NoteEvent( class=>csEventClass('TOOL_ACTION'),importance=>c
+sEventScale('LOW'),
               message=>"Error Log Parser ran but '".&csErrorLog."' wa
+s not found",
               info=>"parser assumes no errors have been logged since 
+the parser was last run."
             );
}

#exit

#=====================================================================
+===========================
sub process_errorlog
{
    my $LOG = $_[0];
    my $entries = 0;  # track num of entries processed.

    my $state = 'none'; #state of the parser;
    my ( $time, $class, $severity, $message, $debug ) = ();


    #---------------------------------
    # walk the file
    while( <$LOG> )
    {
        ....fun with regex's and such....
    }


    if( $time )
    {
        ....temporary inelegance to flush out the last record....
    }
    return $entries;
}
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