in reply to C lib prereq in Makefile.PL

Your best bet here, is to add some custom Perl code before the invocation to the MakeMaker code, which looks for the library. You could try driving a compilation of a small C program that attempts to use the features you need. If it fails, you can bail out with an error or explanation stating what the user needs to do.

Best regards

-lem, but some call me fokat