Tackling Repairs

"My dog chewed it up."
"I had a carton of chocolate milk in my bookbag."
"I left it outside."
"My little brother colored in it."
"I took all the labels off & now I don't know where they are."
"I don't know how that happened."

We've heard it all when it comes to damaged books. But honestly, it doesn't matter how it happened, we still need to see if it can be repaired and how to do it. I have a pile of books that I need to get to and I have struggled for the past 6 years to decide how to best tackle the task. Do I have a book hospital and get to it later? Do I drop everything and work on it right away? (Not always an option folks.) Do I just discard the book since my time is at a premium? I have not found a hard and fast rule to follow on this.

What I can say about book repair is that you should follow your instincts. Do what works best for you. One of the best book repair people I know says you should never have a book hospital and you should repair books as you see them come in. She, however, is a high school librarian and as much as I would love to do just that, being in an elementary school does not really afford me the luxury of time. On a day I have 8 classes at 30 minutes each, repairing books just doesn't fit in my schedule. I'm working on a new time management plan and it involves more scheduling tasks and less to do lists. I am finding it works much better. (One of my scheduled tasks is blogging and this is my third week so it seems to be helping.)

What are some ways you've found that work for fitting in book repairs? Do you have a system? Help!