Does iTunes automatically monitor a folder?

Windows Media Player has the great feature that it automatically monitors your specified music folder. So when new songs are added, they automatically appear in your library in WMP. Does iTunes have the same feature or does it monitor and update your specified music folder in iTunes automatically. Recently while adding a lot of music iTunes managed to duplicate some 7000 music songs, it now means I have to traul through and delte them all. Any help with either problems would be great!