Iphoto import

Hello,
I just found my external hard drive that contains all my family photos from 2002-2005. This 500 GB hard drive is full. When I tried to import my photos into IPhoto, I realized that Iphoto makes copies of the photos and places it on my hard drive. My Macbook Pro hard drive is already filled to the brim and I do not want to fill it up completely. My friend said that in Aperture that there is an import feature that allowed the users to upload their pictures onto Aperture directly from their hard drive, not making a copy of the picture. He says that it sores the files in their current location rather than downloading to a library. Does anybody know if there is such a feature on Iphoto? Does anybody know a solution to my problem?
Thanks

Open up iPhoto Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. Uncheck the box next to "Copy items to the iPhoto library." Now when you add the pictures, iPhoto won't copy them to your MBP's hard drive, just sort of index them.