How to restore itunes music and playlists but run from external HD?

Hi all,
I recently upgraded my macbook from Tiger to Snow Lepoard.
I backed up my entire HD onto my exteral harddrive and fromated my HD and rebooted with Snow Lepoard.
Is it possible to restore itunes to exactly how it used to be i.e. playlists etc, but, is it possible to do this but run all my music from my external harddrive rather than adding it back onto the computers HD?
Any help how to do this would be great.
Cheers

Start iTunes with the option key held down. Guide it to the library file on the external hard drive. This is all assuming it is on there in some sort of regular format and not in an image file or some such.

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