Moving music files between iTunes on laptop and iTunes on external HD

Hi - my music file became too big for my old macbook pro (120 GB HD space) so I followed Apple's instructions and moved it to an external hard drive. That worked fine, I just plug the HD in and there is all my music.
But, is it possible to restore the connection to a small number of songs in my iTunes on the laptop, so I would just have a "mini music library" for traveling around with the laptop? The names of all the songs show up in iTunes when I open it without connecting the external HD, but they "cannot be found."
Also, I just bought 5 songs and forgot to plug in the external HD, so those 5 songs are now the only songs that actively live in my music folder on my laptop. How do I move just those five files over to the external HD?
I hope all this is clear!
Thanks.
Fran

you don't need two libraries.
iTunes can manage files which are stored in various locations. you can either use this script ...
[_*Re-Locate Selected v1.1*_|http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=relocateselected]
This script will re-locate the files of the selected iTunes tracks from their current location to a new user-chosen folder. iTunes will be updated with each track's new location and all of each track's meta-data will be preserved. Option to remove the files from their original location. (I don't advise using this on more than an album's worth of tracks or so at a time; re-locating dozens of tracks' files to a single folder doesn't seem to make much sense to me.)
NOTE: If your "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" preference set, you will not be able to create new folders in or re-locate files within the iTunes Media folder; outside is OK.
... to move selected content from one to another location, or do this:
(1) go iTunes > preferences > advanced and temporarily point +*iTunes media folder location+* to either your local iTunes folder or the external. on the same tab, ensure +*copy files to ... when adding to library+* is check marked.
(2) select (highlight) the files to be moved in iTunes, right-click (or ctrl-click) and choose +consolidate files+ from the pop-up menu.
(3) remember to point +*iTunes media folder location+* back to to the original spot.

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