ITunes Library Consolidation Help

Hello there, I am new to the forum. I've been researching a little bit with little luck so I thought I'd try here.
I am about to finish building a new quad core computer and would like to move my 72 gb library over to my new computer. The only thing is I also want to keep all the song information (especially the date added and such)..but I don't know if it's possible...I just wish I could somehow replicate my library because my library is organized by the dates in which each song was added...
I've read about Library Consolidation...but I'm not sure if what I have in mind of doing is correct...
So basically..this is what I have in mind...
I'm going to buy a small (150 gb) internal hard drive and put it in my old computer. I will press the button that says "keep everything organized" and will change the itunes folder to be assigned within the new internal hard drive. I will then consolidate everything into the new drive.
Right there I have a question. Is it still okay to consolidate even though the music is all in different places? Barely any of the music is in my iTunes folder (most is in different partitioned drives), and so I am afraid if I try consolidating the files iTunes will freeze or not know what to do.
Back to what I would do...so then I would take the new hard drive which hopefully has all the music and install it in the new computer. I would then install iTunes on the new computer, and simply insert all the songs from the hard drive? In doing that, wouldn't all the files' information be gone? (Most importantly date added, because the date would now be different?) The only reason I really need date added is because I initially add all of the songs backwards so that they play in order when the songs are sorted by date added. Otherwise, all the songs would be out of order...
So yeah...I basically was wondering if the process I have in mind is correct, and also if theres any way to keep the file information.
Lastly, what does export library mean?
I'm very sorry for the long post, but I have been trying to find out how I would go about doing this with no luck from anywhere...I hope you guys can help me out. I appreciate any help.
Thanks.

+Is it still okay to consolidate even though the music is all in different places?+
Yes, that's exactly what the Consolidate Library command is for.
+In doing that, wouldn't all the files' information be gone?+
The ratings, Date Added, etc are store in the itunes library.itl file. That is another important file to copy over.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
The XML file can recreate a library but the Date Added will go missing. The ITL is the important one.
+Lastly, what does export library mean?+
It exports a list of your library into an XML file, so other application that read XML could use it.

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