Many people are afraid to link out to related resources throughout their copy. Many search engines grade pages not only based upon their copy and inbound links, but also upon the pages that they link to. Relevant outbound links to quality sites can actually help your own performance in the search engines. All of your outbound links should not be link trades in one corner of your site. Try to naturally mix to quality sites in your site architecture wherever it makes sense.
Outbound links will not help to raise your links. You can place a no follow out bound link that opens in new window. This gives a good user experience but definitely not going to help in SEO.
