Who is Joe Gould from Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories and what is their importance?

Joe Gould is the man who was writing the extensive work titled "An Oral History of Our Time." Joe was educated at Harvard but had quit all pretense of work in order to work on this project which was described by most as a "rambling" discourse on the people he met. Joe wrote on children's tablets and had twenty-seven tablets completed. He'd bequeathed them to Harvard and the Smithsonian upon his death.