I have frequently run into the situation where I want to update many records at once - like GMail does with setting many messages \"read\" or \"unread\".
I often add collection-based update_multiple and destroy_multiple actions to an otherwise RESTful controller.
Check out this Railscast on Updating Through Checkboxes. It should give you a good idea how to approach it, come back and add to this question if you run into troubles!