I've been using Lightroom since LR1. I now have several LR 5.5 catalogs generally organized by year and camera. I want to create a new catalog which will contain my best from each catalog. BUT, I don't want to remove the photos from their "home" catalog. The photos will continue to reside in both their original catalog and in the new "Portfolio" catalog. The easiest way to approach this is to filter photos in catalog "A" by rating, select all 5-star photos and create a new catalog containing just the selection. I don't want to export or remove them from their catalog or move them on disk. I want them to appear in BOTH catalogs. Since Lightroom is built on a database that merely points to image files, it seems like this should be possible.
I realize I can create an empty catalog and select File->Import from Another Catalog... , then locate the photos one at a time by name and location clicking the import checkbox - tedious is an understatement when you have several 10's of thousands of photos.
Any ideas?