hi

i have a site about t-shirts.

i would like to make a page with links to leading sites of my industry, for 2 reasons: it's a valuable source of info for my surfers, AND some of the sites offer backlinks in return.

2 questions:

1. does having a page with a lot of outgoing links weaken my site?
2. if i have reciprocal links with sites of my industry, is it worth something for ranking or does google ignore it?

thanks

lenny