diff --git a/giscanner/scannermain.py b/giscanner/scannermain.py
index 89ec193..8ee92c3 100755
--- a/giscanner/scannermain.py
+++ b/giscanner/scannermain.py
@@ -94,6 +94,34 @@ def get_windows_option_group(parser):
     return group
 
 
+def _get_default_fallback_libpath():
+    outputs = os.environ.get("outputs", "out").split()
+    if "lib" in outputs:
+        # For multiple output derivations let's try whether there is a $lib
+        # environment variable and use that as the base store path.
+        store_path = os.environ.get("lib")
+    elif "out" in outputs:
+        # Otherwise we have a single output derivation, so the libraries most
+        # certainly will end up in "$out/lib".
+        store_path = os.environ.get("out")
+
+    if store_path is not None:
+        # Even if we have a $lib as output, there still should be a $lib/lib
+        # directory.
+        return os.path.join(store_path, 'lib')
+    else:
+        # If we haven't found a possible scenario, let's return an empty string
+        # so that the shared library won't be prepended with a path.
+        #
+        # Note that this doesn't mean that all hope is lost, because after all
+        # we can still use --fallback-library-path to set one.
+        #
+        # Also, we're not returning None, because that would make it very
+        # difficult to disable adding fallback paths altogether using something
+        # like: --fallback-library-path=""
+        return ""
+
+
 def _get_option_parser():
     parser = optparse.OptionParser('%prog [options] sources')
     parser.add_option('', "--quiet",
@@ -200,6 +228,10 @@ match the namespace prefix.""")
     parser.add_option("", "--filelist",
                       action="store", dest="filelist", default=[],
                       help="file containing headers and sources to be scanned")
+    parser.add_option("", "--fallback-library-path",
+                      action="store", dest="fallback_libpath",
+                      default=_get_default_fallback_libpath(),
+                      help="Path to prepend to unknown shared libraries")
 
     group = get_preprocessor_option_group(parser)
     parser.add_option_group(group)
diff --git a/giscanner/shlibs.py b/giscanner/shlibs.py
index 838d343..35b6dab 100644
--- a/giscanner/shlibs.py
+++ b/giscanner/shlibs.py
@@ -53,10 +53,24 @@ def _resolve_libtool(options, binary, libraries):
 # Match absolute paths on OS X to conform to how libraries are usually
 # referenced on OS X systems.
 def _ldd_library_pattern(library_name):
+    nix_store_dir = re.escape('@nixStoreDir@'.rstrip('/'))
     pattern = "(?<![A-Za-z0-9_-])(lib*%s[^A-Za-z0-9_-][^\s\(\)]*)"
-    if platform.system() == 'Darwin':
-        pattern = "([^\s]*lib*%s[^A-Za-z0-9_-][^\s\(\)]*)"
-    return re.compile(pattern % re.escape(library_name))
+    pattern = r'''
+        (
+          (?:
+            # First match Nix store paths because they need to be absolute.
+            (?:%s(?:/[^/]*)+)
+            # Everything else not a store path remains relative, because we
+            # would end up having absolute build paths in the resulting GIR
+            # file.
+            | (?<=/)
+          )
+          # And finally the library itself:
+          (?:lib%s[^A-Za-z0-9_-][^\s\(\)]*)
+        )
+    '''
+    return re.compile(pattern % (nix_store_dir, re.escape(library_name)),
+                      re.VERBOSE)
 
 
 # This is a what we do for non-la files. We assume that we are on an
@@ -115,7 +129,11 @@ def _resolve_non_libtool(options, binary, libraries):
                 m = pattern.search(line)
                 if m:
                     del patterns[library]
-                    shlibs.append(m.group(1))
+                    match = m.group(1)
+                    if not match.startswith('/') \
+                       and len(options.fallback_libpath) > 0:
+                        match = os.path.join(options.fallback_libpath, match)
+                    shlibs.append(match)
                     break
 
         if len(patterns) > 0:
diff --git a/giscanner/utils.py b/giscanner/utils.py
index 660081e..c9c767a 100644
--- a/giscanner/utils.py
+++ b/giscanner/utils.py
@@ -109,17 +109,11 @@ def extract_libtool_shlib(la_file):
     if dlname is None:
         return None
 
-    # Darwin uses absolute paths where possible; since the libtool files never
-    # contain absolute paths, use the libdir field
-    if platform.system() == 'Darwin':
-        dlbasename = os.path.basename(dlname)
-        libdir = _extract_libdir_field(la_file)
-        if libdir is None:
-            return dlbasename
-        return libdir + '/' + dlbasename
-    # From the comments in extract_libtool(), older libtools had
-    # a path rather than the raw dlname
-    return os.path.basename(dlname)
+    dlbasename = os.path.basename(dlname)
+    libdir = _extract_libdir_field(la_file)
+    if libdir is None:
+        return dlbasename
+    return libdir + '/' + dlbasename
 
 
 def extract_libtool(la_file):