You dont need root access to install DBI in your own directories though you may get warnings if the install tries to add the docs to the Perl doc tree.
perl Makefile.PL Prefix=/pathtoyourdir/ should get round that
I dont see what use followed by require will give you (though that could be me missing something)
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).