In her book "Foundations of Crystallography", Maureen Julian says
Crystallography is the science of finding the locations of atoms in crystals.This is a terrible and appalling definition. It is nearsighted and boneheaded at worst, self-centered and egotistical at best. It is certainly what most professional crystallographers and mineralogists are doing these days. It is certainly a fascinating and worthwhile activity. However, defining the word by the principle activity of the practitioners at the present time is just not right. It ignores geometrical crystallography and many other aspects of crystallography.
These notes will refer mostly to what would be called geometrical crystallography, which is the study of crystal forms and symmetry. It is my desire to provide an introduction to the aspects of crystallography useful to a mineralogist using his eyes and mind, perhaps aided by a hand lens or stereo microscope.
Tom's Mineralogy Info / tom@mmto.org