I want to write about the information provided at many of those pages, or some of them I was to post as supplemental sources to articles I've written. Will this hurt me? Keep in mind my site is brand new. What about in the short run vs. long run. I was kinda thinking that the wealth of informative would be more valuable to my viewers in the long run and outweigh any sort of negative pr effects? Another idea after reading the forums a bit is maybe putting nofollow on all of them unless the other side provides a backlink? That way I get to keep the reference but it doesn't "hurt"?
As far as I know, outgoing links lead to lower PR and "maybe" consequent lower rankings. I wouldn't link out to 2000 sites on one page or maybe I'd slap "no-follow" after all those links.