Using iphoto with iphoto library on external hard drive

My Imac is running snow leopard with ilife '11. I have imported way too many photos into Iphoto which is really slowing it down. I'd like to put all of my photos on an external hard drive and use that as my iphoto library--which should be possible, as I gather from reading various other related posts. Another reason to put it on an external drive is so that I can use my new macbook air to edit/organize while on the go.
1. How do I set up my Iphoto library on an external hard drive?
2. How do I make sure that all future photos go to the library on that external hard drive?
3. How do I run Iphoto with the library on an external hard drive?
THANK YOU for your help!

Hello. I just transferred my iPhoto library to a Western Digital My Book for Mac external hard drive. Do you know if I needed to format this drive even though it says it's for Mac. I did not format it and there were not any instructions with the drive that said I needed to do it. The transfer seems to have worked ok but my backups from Time Machine onto Time Capsule are inconsistent. I already posed a question regarding this problem but I noticed this message regarding formating the external disk and I wonder if that is causing the problem. Thanks.

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