How do i (easily) store only PART of my iTunes library on an external disk?

i have a LOT of music to digitize and not a lot of space left in my powerbook. i want to keep this music on an external drive for later. i do not need to play it (for now) and i do not connect to this external drive often.
should i just drag the song folders or artist folders out of the iTunes folder on my laptop and onto the external drive?
or, is there some sort of cool way (play list?) that will let me keep them catalogued in iTunes even though unavailable?
pb g4 12 (first one)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   want a new one

so dude, it would be better to put it all. You can't just put part because itunes needs to draw the songs from one place. So what you do is drag your whole itunes folder to your external hard drive then when it is all transported go to preferences and select advanced. Hit general and change the itunes music folder location to the iTunes music folder within the itunes folder. Also select keep library organized. It will automatically update you library, organize, and transport any imports to your external hard drive. Finally, it is safe to delete the folder from your computer. DO NOT DELETE FROM ITUNES! Delete the whole folder library on your computer. Remember to connect the hard drive when ever you open itunes, and if you forget repeat the steps to as stated before to draw the songs from the hard drive. Hope this helps. It helped me free up soooo much space on my computer.

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