Best way to merge multiple iPhoto libraries from several external hard drives into one, while deleting duplicates?

Problem: My wife and I both have MacBook Pros (MBPs).  We take a lot of pictures and import them into iPhoto.  When the storage capacity of our MBPs gets full, I have been moving our iPhoto libraries into external hard drives, which are now multiple (3 or 4).  The problem I now realize we have been making, is that once the iPhoto libraries were copied onto the external hard drives, we were only deleting about half of the photos in each iPhoto library remaining in our MBPs (because we wanted to keep some of the important ones in our hard drives).  Once the storage capacities of our MBPs got full again, I would repeat the whole process again and again.  In essence I now have several large iPhoto libraries (each about 80 GB), each with multiple duplicate photos, divided among several external hard drives.  And I am running out of space on my hard drive again.  So what is the best way to:
a)  merge all of these iPhoto libraries into just one, while simultaneously being able to delete all the duplicates?  (or would you not recommend this?)
b)  prevent this from happening again?
Thanks.  BTW I am using OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 and iPhoto 8.1.2 (2009)

If you have Aperture 3.3 or later and iPhoto 9.3 or later you can merge libraries with Aperture.
Otherwise the only way to merge Libraries is with the paid ($30) version of iPhoto Library Manager
The Library Manager app can be set avoid duplicates.

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