compiling gnome platform

[Joe Van Dyk <joevandyk gmail com>]

Hi,

I'm writing an application that heavily uses gnomecanvas.  It needs to
run on redhat 8, 9, and enterprise 3.0.

But the version of gnomecanvas/libart/others that ships with RH 9 and
earlier has some pretty bad bugs that my application exposes.

So, what's the best way to install newer versions of the gnomecanvas
(and possibly other) libraries that hopefully wouldn't conflict too
much with the base install?  Just compile and install from source? 
Where should I install them to?

Thanks,
Joe