Best way to manage photos, multiple computers, multiple input mediums

I have a multitude of questions regarding photo library. I have a bit of a mess on my hands.
i have 30K photos on one computer at home (24'imac) and my husband and I both have laptops (macbook pro). I have his "hand me downs". When we switched to the 24"imac (from the small imac), I noticed later (I was not here at home for several months) that it seemed that pictures from my canon library from several years ago seemed to be missing. The person who did the changeover (of course) pleaded ignorance and I believe didn't do a proper backup. In fact I have noticed pictures on my husband's or my laptop, I don't see on our "now" primary machine. I reloaded any CD's i had, however, now i have multitude of picture copies as the "CD created" copy now has another name with a completely different date and year! Further, my husband would take his computer with him on vacation and download photos and sometimes i am not sure all the photos made it to the main computer! So i have these separate libraries on separate computers!
One of my projects in the upcoming year is to consolidate all these libraries so I ensure i have one final version and then set out to reduce, edit these photos, make slide shows, etc with them instead of holding all or most photos on each! It was a learning experience for me as i recently made my first book and found out that i used only 30% of the photos (of 1500 photos) so i think i really need to do a much better editing job to effectively reduce the number of photos. I would also like to even scan my current paper photos, slides, negatives into this, hence creating a large library, slide show, books, etc. In fact I would like to eliminate most of my photo albums!
My thought is that i need to
1) consolidate all libraries from all computers into one library on one hard disk
2) divide libraries by year
3) OBVIOUSLY---backup the library(s)
4) reload or keep on the 1TB hard drive all the photos
5) create an additional backup
I hope this makes sense. I am just not sure how to go about it. Given all I have read about error messages and libraries gone missing, I am concerned about the process I use to do this. Thanks!

The best way is create one Library from several is to use iPhoto Library Manager and its' merge command.
Why do you want to have multiple Libraries? iPhoto is good for 250,000 in a Library.
However, if you do want toL Managing Multiple Libraries - including moving pics/albums/rolls and metadata between them - is greatly facilitated by using iPhoto Library Manager
As for scanning? WHat software comes with your Scanner? I have had perfectly acceptable results with Image Capture.
I am concerned given all that i have read about "missing" iphoto libraries and errors.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but it is important to have a back up as protection against problems.
Regards
TD

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