Long story short: found a newspaper in an antique store today that has an obituary of an ancestor. There’s mildew on it, but I definately want to keep it.
Is there any hope? I’ve read that vinegar will kill it (vinegar and sunlight). Should I dab a bit of vinegar on it and put it in the sun?
If it were on a corner of the page, I’d just trim it a bit, but unfortunately it’s smack dab in the middle of the obit. Should I put it in the freezer (that will slow the growth, so I hear)?
Bleach, mixed 1:10 with water will kill the mildew. Spray it on lightly and let dry - if you soak the paper, it will probably disintegrate. You may need to do a few spray and dry cycles.
Before doing anything to the paper, photocopy it in case restoration becomes ruination.
The sun would make matters worse by turning the paper brown and brittle.
Searching on newsprint restoration mildew reveals that removing mildew from newsprint is at least vaguely possible, but a quick look through several of the links revealed no standard method. YMMV.
Two things I forgot to mention -
First is, as Squink said, don’t put the paper in sunlight unless you want to bake it.
Second is, once it’s been de-mildewed, preserve the paper with “Bookkeeper.” It’s an archival preservative that neutralizes the acid in paper and greatly retards, if not prevents further yellowing. It’s not cheap, but it does work. I’ve preserved some posters printed on high-acid paper with the stuff, and it works as advertised.
(That Bookkeeper link url has enough code in it to make me think it may be session-specific, so if it breaks, head to http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/servlet and find the stuff there.)