Using shared library in gCvs

[cvsnewbie]

This is a non-cvs problem, but a general linux/unix question.

I had compiled my gCvs and tcl using sources from sourceforge. When I 
ran it, I got the shared library libtcl8.4.so file not found error. I 
did have the so file in the /usr/local/lib directory. Is there an 
environmental variable like LIB (under RedHat Linux) needed to be defined?

TIA.

P.S. I looked at the gCVS's Makefile. In there is a variable called 
libtclxx.so defined, but is not referred. Could I make some change to 
the command file to link the libtclxx.so file directly to the gCvs 
executable?