libgnc-qof.so.1: cannot open shared object file

[...]

I've gotten this error on two machines, one running ubuntu 9.04 and the
other debian lenny.

This is the process I used:

#apt-get remove gnucash   #old package install

#apt-get install (all sorts of dependancies)

$ svn checkout http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/tags/2.3.15gnucash-2.3.15
$cd gnucash-2.3.15
$./autogen.sh
$./configure --enable-pyt --enable-compile-warnings
$make
#make install
$gnucash

gnucash: error while loading shared libraries: libgnc-qof.so.1: cannot open
shared object file: No such file or directory

but this file exists in very reasonable looking locations:
# find -name libgnc-qof.so.1
./usr/local/lib/libgnc-qof.so.1

./home/student/code/gnucash-2.3.15/src/libqof/qof/.libs/libgnc-qof.so.1

This came up for others when they tried to relocate gnucash (
http://www.mail-archive.com/gnucash-devel@gnucash.org/msg25705.html), but
this is a fresh build.  Can this be fixed by editing the makefile?

relevant sections of makefile are:

pkgdatadir = $(datadir)/gnucash
pkglibdir = $(libdir)/gnucash
pkgincludedir = $(includedir)/gnucash
[snip]
prefix = /usr/local
exec_prefix = ${prefix}
libdir = ${exec_prefix}/lib
top_builddir = .
top_srcdir = .
[snip]
QOF_CFLAGS = -I${top_builddir}/src/libqof/qof -I${top_srcdir}/src/libqof/qof
QOF_LIBS = ${top_builddir}/src/libqof/qof/libgnc-qof.la
QOF_LIB_DIR = ${pkglibdir}
QOF_PREFIX = internal


(warning, I know NOTHING about makefiles)
QOF_LIB_DIR looks alright (should find /usr/local/lib/libgnc-qof.so.1)
but I cant tell if QOF_CFLAGS is sufficent to find
${top_builddir}/src/libqof/qof/.libs/libgnc-qof.so.1  where ${top_builddir}
= /home/student/code/gnucash-2.3.15.  Is that .libs supposed to be there?  I
created a hard link so
/home/student/code/gnucash-2.3.15/src/libqof/qof/libgnc-qof.so.1 pointed to
/home/student/code/gnucash-2.3.15/src/libqof/qof/.libs/libgnc-qof.so.1

running gnucash without recompiling still did not work (same error).

any ideas? (yes, I'm still at it)