“We have no real assurances, other than them telling us so, that things have not been lost,” said John Dupuis, head of the Steacie Science and Technology Library at York University in Toronto. “It does not look like they are doing as much as they could have to make sure things were not lost.”

Much of the furor has centered on the fisheries department, which is consolidating its libraries into two locations, in Sidney, British Columbia, and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. A public firestorm erupted after the Canadian news media published photographs of discarded material in trash bins and cited uncorroborated allegations of books’ being burned.

“Here we have people with Ph.D.s in oceanic scientific research who are highly educated and skilled and specialized, and nobody asked them if the materials in the library were required for them to continue their research,” said Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, whose members include government scientists.

Gail Shea, head of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or D.F.O., adamantly denied any book burning. “Our government values these collections and will continue to strongly support it by continuing to add new material on an ongoing basis,” she said in a statement. “All materials for which D.F.O. has copyright will be preserved by the department.”

Despite such assurances, some academic researchers and librarians remain skeptical.

“My overwhelming feeling is that we don’t know exactly what some of the ramifications are for my future research or other people’s research because of the nonsystematic way it has been done,” said John Reynolds, a professor of aquatic ecology at Simon Fraser University who uses federal government fisheries data on British Columbia streams for his study of salmon sustainability.