I have never worked in a college theatre, be hear is my take from experience working in community theater.

The problem with organizing the physical storage of props is that how and where they are stored tends to be governed more by the size and shape of the prop then any other factor. I can be hard to store them alphabetically when things that need to be next to each other are vastly different sizes or require special means of storage, like being hung instead of sitting on a shelf. I find it works best to keep similar items together and setup props storage so it's easy to walk through an see everything.

As for the idea of bar-coding and cataloging props, I think we have all had it at one time or another, but for it to really work (especially in community theater) you need one or two people who are going to take responsibility for it. It's sad to say but I find that the average person working on a show isn't going to care enough to respect your system of organization. So unless someone keeps on top of it things are going to get taken out without recording it, put back in the wrong place, etc. You cold try restricting access to the props, but I find that that usually last for a week or two then problems come up with that restriction.