Just as an additional note: instead of the use lib you can set your PERL5LIB (or PERLLIB) environment variable to the directory where your modules are installed. I use $HOME/lib/perl. So when you run Makefile.PL on a new module, do it like this:

perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=$HOME/lib/perl
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and it will automagically install everything under that directory. If you want to use the CPAN module, during the first run, you can configure it so it automatically passes the PREFIX argument to Makefile.PL.

--ZZamboni