HELP, please! My photos have disappeared from iPhoto library & I can only see them on the screensaver.

Firstly, I should say we haven't updated/installed/deleted anything.  I just opened iPhoto yesterday and first it told me it couldn't open up without specifying a library, but then it seemed our library has just disappeared.  I then created a new library as, I have to admit, me & my DH are complete tecno dummies, but that didn't help much.  The only thing which we have done in the past couple of days is set up the screensaver to play our photos.  So now we can only see the photos on that - I'm presuming that means they haven't been completely lost (?) but am in a panic as we've got no back-up (three years worth of photos!).
When I go on 'system preferences' (hope that's the correct translation, our computer's using Italian) and the screensaver, I can see 'picture folder' where all the photos are but I can't find that anywhere else on the computer.
Also, I read other threads about similar probs & tried launching iPhoto pressing down 'option & control' but that didn't help me out either.
We also spent half an hour on the phone to the Apple helpline here in Italy (yes, that's a charged call) to try and understand what's gone wrong and the advisor just kept telling us she didn't know how to help us out 'cause our Mac is an old model
Apologies in advance for my complete ignorance about how to solve this problem but I'd be really grateful if someone out there could shed some light on what's happened. 

when you say to go to my Pictures Folder, do you mean to go on Finder, then Pictures, then look at the iPhoto library?
Yes. Is there more than one there?
The material in your screensaver are cached images. They cannot be recovered and soon they will go way.
If you have deleted your Library (and it sounds like you have done this, accidentally)  the you have deleted your Photos and you need to restore from your back up.
Regards
TD

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